Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

In the end it was culmination of three complex plans, running into each other and spectacularly crashing and burning. 

The CATTs had not managed to make their way into the emperors mind the first time, they had been made to retreat by the golden guard, and all they had seen come of the mindscape teleportation spell was cape-less distraught hunter which only made them more motivated to see what secrets Belos mind held, and the real plan for the day of unity. 

Belos had known about the rebels, he had heard the whispers and seen the suspicious actions of those who said they were loyal, but he was prepared to deal with them, some insurgent witch who thought the day of unity could be stopped by their mere force. He had fooled the entire isles for decades, what pathetic hope could a couple of witches pull one over him. The current Caleb replacement would also be dealt with, a swiftly as possible. It was honestly a shame, he was starting to like this one, he almost thought he wouldn't have to be disposed of till the day of unity. 

Tom the emperors coven scout, knew nothing of conspiracies and beloved authority figures ruthlessly lying to them. But he did have a complex, multi-step plan to not get picked on by leading commander Argannes, and therefore not get killed.

"TOMATHY!" Barked Commander Argannes. "get these reports over to the emperor pronto, he's in a bad mood, so i'm having you do it, because I don't like you." Tom sighed, it was a work in progress. 

It was only a few hours since the branding of children had stopped- I mean since the emperor's coven had been prevented from giving the student's sigils. All three groups were on the move, 

The emperor moved from the portal room, back to the throne room. Awaiting news on the advancement of his plan, and news of the golden guard. He had no doubt he would found and dealt with, hunter couldn't survive without him he'd made sure of that. He would not have his righteous justice interfered with when he was so close. For now he just had to play the concerned uncle for a little longer, as far as anyone new, the golden guard had ran into trouble and couldn't return right away, but needed to as soon as he was able. He put his mask on. Sitting down in his commanding throne. Ready for news. The door creaked open. Belos faltered. 

"Hettie Cutburn what are doing here?" He demanded. 

The coven head coughed. "Well, esteemed emperor I have a small question to ask." She said. 

Behind the mask, Phillip's eye twitched and unbeknownst to the three co-coordinated plans,

a first crack appeared.

Meanwhile Darius regrouped with Raine without a word. They marched in time, Raine giving Darius the specific ingredients for the potion they intended to use against Belos, Darius manipulated some abomination in a specific manner to affect it just the right way. They turned a corner, ready to have Eberwolf join them for the last step. 

"grrrr-hisss" They were greeted with instead, but not to them.

"Don't think you can keep getting away with this! Eberwolf, I know it was you who disturbed my new creation!" Construction coven head Mason accused.

Darius paused coughing awkwardly, from alongside him, Raine shifted their position to avoid eye contact. 

"Funny, bumping into you here, I hate to interrupt your lovely conversation, but you could I discuss something with Eberwolf for a moment." Darius said haughtily, slightly annoyed.

"Oh, by all means." Mason replied. He didn't move.

"Privately." Darius added. 

"Privately, how vague and convenient for you. If didn't know better, I would say it sounds like you're trying to hide something."Mason said.

"Why would we ever do something so foolish, as defy our benevolent, all-powerful emporer's will, this is all just a big misunderstanding, if we can we be on our way, then-" Raine said meekly in an attempt to defuse the situation. 

"Well, I'll just come along," Mason said. 

Eberwolf growled in a quiet low tone, Raine plastered on the most forced innocent smile they could manage. But none could do a thing without arousing suspicion.

The crack widened. 

Back in the throne room with emperor Belos and Hettia Cutburn. The "quick" question had evolved into a complex, multi-faceted sub-catergorous inquiry, with no end in sight. Belos contemplated ending her this exact second. Would anyone really care if she mysteriously disappeared before the day of unity? 

"-and then of course, there was a bit of blood, but nothing major, and most of it wasn't even-" Hettia continued, babbling nonstop, having gone horrendously off track, but she was interrupted by noise coming from directly outside. 

 The crack split and kept growing. 

Meanwhile from where the noises came from:

"How do lose him?" Darius whispered furiously to his fellow CATTs , they were all attempting to walk as nonchalantly as possible away from Mason without being obvious, the result was... varied.

"I'm sure if we just buy enough we can make it to Belos in time, and put an end to things, before anyone can catch on. We can still make this work." 

"Sapling, is that you?" Said the nasally voice of Terra Snapdragon, head of the plant coven. She stood by Mason with a simple smile on her face,that somehow seemed sadistic. 

Eberwolf made a garbled noise that did not directly translate into any known langauge, but basically meant "or maybe we're doomed." 

Cracks now covered the entire thing, growing more rapid by the second

Tom was also having trouble, he had taken a wrong turn. It turns out the throne room was a lot closer than he remembered, which should have been a good thing, but with his horrible sense of direction had somehow made things take twice as long. He had no idea how he had ever survived the mountain training exercise for initiation. He passed by the infirmary. The strong smell of healing potions, and the gabble of scouts tending to their wounds, meant a group had just returned from their mission. Tom paused in his journey after hearing the familiar groaning of someone he knew. He poked his head in through the door, looking at one coven scout with his mask up, bandaging his arm. 

"Tad, my lad! What's up?" Tom said. 

Tad turned to see him, grinning in return, "Oh you know, just got back from the last mission from Hexside to recruit children forcefully,that didn't want to sign their life away to the emperor's whim. And we got beat up by them instead. This one plant track girl actually got me really good. She was very impressive." 

"Well it's nice to a familar face in this stressful times before the day of unity." Tom said.

"Yeah, especially since all contact with former loved ones is cut off, and only we're only encouraged to socialize with other members of the emperor's coven, who half are pitted against us, or plotting against us." Tad commented. 

They both laughed a little too forcefully. 

"Anything else crazy happen, Tad?" Tom asked.

"Well I wasn't there for it personally, but I caught a couple glances of the Golden Guard!"

"Woah, hasn't he been missing for a few? Why was he at Hexside? Did he helped with the mission?" Tom said. 

"Well, actually-" Tad started. Tom looked at clock, cursing at how much time he had let get away from him.

"Titan, darn-it! I gotta head to the throne room fast, I got too distracted." Tom interrupted. 

"Well, see you round' " Tad said

"Hope nothing crazier happens before the day of unity!" Tom said, dashing away.

"for some reason I have a feeling." Tad said. 

Tom rounded the corner just in time to see half the coven heads turn another, it seems they were also being quite loud as well. Tom wondered what that was about. Terra seemed to try to get closer to coven head Raine, and Eberwolf seemed to be very aggressive to everyone them and Darius, Mason and Darius were arguing loudly. Tom awkwardly trailed behind them, his presence drowned out by their noise. 

The entire object was filled with cracks now, just one more tiny fracture and the whole thing would collapse.

Belos was on the verge of more murder than usual, the other covenheads were plotting treason or attempting to tattle, and poor tom trailed behind witness to the whole thing, not that he understood what was going on. The next moment the throne room door opened and they all collided.

Darius pulled out the potion, Eberwolf lunged at Terra, the emperor stood up dramatically.

"I knew you were up to something!"

"how dare you!" 

"'Raine, can you-"

"'Hold still, so I can."

Plants and abomination goo faced, Mason threw Eberwolf at Raine who ducked and Eberwolf hit Hettia. Belos aproached them all threateningly, ready to put an end to all this nonsense. it was at that moment Darius grip on the test tube went loose. The potion hit the floor, shattering, an unintended spell combination of the all the magic running rampant in the room activated surprising everyone in the room, regardless of their level of awareness. 

All this happened in a manner of seconds, and Tom decided that enough time and chose that preceding second to open the door. At which he was faced with the complete unexpected sight of several covenheads fresh from a fight where a vaguely emperor-reminiscent sludge on the ground stood in place of the man himself. No one moved, despite the fact that probably would have been the best course of action for them. Tom's important slipped from his grasp, uselessly falling to the floor, a but of emperor sludge dripped onto the edges. The sight before finally registered and he opened his mouth. 

"OH MY TITAN!" Tom screamed. "THE COVENHEADS KILLED EMPEREROR BELOS!!!!"

Chapter Text

   The castle was in chaos. The only thing keeping it from absolute anarchy and reverting to horrible state Belos would have compared to the wild ages was complete denial for half of the scouts, and for the other half the thought that if they didn't do anything and waited, a superior would come along tell everyone what to do and MAKE EVERYTHING MAKE SENSE AGAIN.

"We just need someone to take over, until Belos gets back." Said Commander Organia to a random scout nobody knew the name of.

She moved restlessly through the hallways not even knowing where she was going her white uniform was wrinkled and triangle holding the cape crooked. The uniform had actually been scheduled to wash today, but due to the total collapse of the power hierarchy it hadn't got done, also because one of the coven guards in the middle of a mental breakdown had accidentally stabbed the laundry worker. The random scout who was trailing behind Commander Organia uniform's was in a bit better shape, but the white cape itself was stained with a bunch a suspicious, explode-y, not emperor-approved potions that a bunch of children had thrown at them during the whole debacle at Hexside. 

They both walked past a guard, pounding against a locked door, and another throwing a chair at a window, surprisingly it bounced off the window and barely missed him. Commander Organia continued forward and the scout scurried after her. Until they figured out a solution she seemed the best bet, to trail behind as she scared off any violence near him. No one was going anywhere, the castle had entered full lock-down, not a work of this would reach the citizens, any wild witches, or worse any rebels still out there. That was one thing local authority figures could agree on.

"We need someone to take command, to whip all the pathetic members of the emperor's coven back in shape! Someone trustworthy, not involved in this whole treason buisness, someone with a good public image (for the most part), maybe someone with a similar brand?" She mused. The scout paused to observe an old peeling Golden Guard propaganda poster for recruitment. 

"What is this still doing here, you'd think it'd be taken down after Hexs-"

"THIS IS PERFECT!" Commander Organia interrupted, her hand shot out faster than a ratworm after their dinner grabbing a fistful of the poster.

"The Golden Guard?" The scout questioned skeptically. 

"He's just what we need, the Golden Guard is a Man of the Emperor through and through, he's dependable, a powerful witch, and would never ever dare betray the emperor. He will carry out the emperor's will, who carries out the titan's will, and WILL MAKE EVERYTHING MAKE SENSE AND MAYBE EVEN THE DAY OF UNITY WILL STILL HAPPEN ON SCHEDULE AFTER MONTHS OF OVERTIME!!!!" Her desperate rant left her out of breath. And from underneath their mask the coven scout next her started to sweat, they took a step back just in case. 

They had seen the Golden Guard pretty recently and didn't think her desperate attempt to cling the next person in the line of authority would work out. But it was a better alternative than Kikimora, who was the other possibility, and of course anyone was better than Adrian, not that he'd be appearing in public any time soon. 
 
The commander marched to nearest kitchen, since scouts didn't have a break room. 

"YOU!" She said, pointing to a scout about to eat a sandwich. It was the most normal thing they'd seen all day. 
"Me?" He said. 

"Take this random scout whose name I don't know or really care about and assemble a squad to reach the Golden Guard. He's to be the replacement  Emperor, until Belos returns."

"Since whe-"

"Since now, and don't question the Emperor Golden Guard!"

"But-" 

She ripped the backdoor open, despite the triple hexes in place. 

"I expect results, within the next 24-hours."She said pushing them out the door.

Both scouts scrambled to recover. 

"And one more thing," Commander Organia said, catching the door right before it shut."Don't let any of the rebels get even a hint of what happened with the emperor."

 Her voice dropped low and threatening.

"Understood ma'am Steve is on it, those rebels will never find out a thing." Steve said, standing rapt to attention along with the other nameless scout. He saluted as well a last-minute afterthought. 
And the door slammed shut. 
 
 
Speaking of the Golden Guard, Hunter was experiencing the best sleepover in his entire sad,depressing life, it was the also the only sleepover he had ever experienced. 
Hunter POV
He was at Gus' house, Gus' parent had been ever courteous, more understanding than he could comprehend. 

"Our house, is your house." Perry porter had said with a gentle look.

He had been apprehensive at first and and even a little scared when the homeless-looking scarred ex-golden guard stood nervously outside their door. But as Gus explained what had happened, begged his dad to let him stay. Their eyes softened, Gus looked up happily entering his home. Flapjack as well, transformed into his bird form and with a tweet bade hunter to follow. Hunter hesitantly following him inside. Still excepting unknown set of rules, expectations, things he had to learn before he be given sanctuary. Instead they immediately gave him clothes, let him use the shower, with so many soaps and cleaners, he had never seen before and so many, so they must have been expensive. And still they asked if he needed anything else.
 
"But I haven't done anything to pay back what you've already given me, I could never possibly ask for more." If there was one thing that had drilled into him, over and over again it was to be grateful.

That I took you in a powerless witch
That I gave you the only way you'd ever do magic
That I tolerated your failures
That I gave you a future

They look at him with a sad expression, one he had seen on more and more people. since he started interacting with people outside the emperor's coven. But anything more could be said or addressed, the doorbell rang and captain willow park entered the house and Willow and Gus brought out the junk food. They couldn't find anything good enough to relax in, in Gus' clothes had been too small for him, so Willow had brought over some extra Pajama's she didn't like, and hunter was now wearing a green top with spiky leaf  and pajama pants with a couple of flower designs on them. They had started the night with some fun Sleepovers rituals involving,taking pictures of their cute palisman, and then watched the tragic romance of Bella and Henrr-crkkmpth-a-dinkl and their forbidden love. Pretty soon, Gus had introduced another mysterious sleepover ritual.

"So, caleb," Willow said her voice said chillingly, the reflection on her glasses shimmered mysteriously, "Do you choose, " Her voice suddenly lightened into a joking tone "Truth or Spell?" 

 Not really knowing what to choose, and after second-guessing himself multiple times,  how was he to know which one was right? He guessed "Truth?" 
"Hmmm...." Her glasses were off, and it made her look different, Hunter noticed but still in a good way, Hunter had just never seen his captain like this before. "When's your birthday. I just thought of it randomly, and realized we don't know. It'd be cool it was before the day of unity. I bet me and Gus and the rest of the Emerald Entrails would able to pull off a way birthday than the Emperor's coven!" She excitedly exclaimed,  her face bright with a smile. 

Hunter reflected, it did seem a bit random, but easily answerable. It only took him a second, to realize he couldn't actually answer it after all. Geez, he couldn't even get past his first "truth" Gus and Willow had been doing it easily (not remembering the amount of blushing Willow had, when Gus had asked a weirdly worded question about something relating to "crushing", what, she refused to say), he passed all the dares easily enough too. He started to overthink it, what was he supposed to say?

 
"Woah, Hunter do you not know your own birthday?" Gus asked. 

Hunter turned away, the tips of his pointed ears a light pink. Yet another thing he hadn't realized was not normal. 

"Hey that's okay. We can figure out your birthday later, but why don't you do your turn now?" Said Willow. 
"Um, Okay,  GUS! Truth or Spell?" 

"Um, I choose-"

A knock on the door startled the pleasant atmosphere, Hunter immediately tensed up and flapjack transformed into staff. Willow and Gus stood by, prepared to support in whatever they could. They crept behind a wall, eyeing the door, as Gus' dad went to answer it.

It was a coven scout.

Hunter's mind suddenly went into overdrive, already imagining the possibilities of this making it's way back to Belos, yet another safe house compromised, slowly closing in on him, dragging him back to Belos, not to mention what would happen to Gus, willow, or Titan Forbid Flapjack if they decided to take his disloyalty out on them, he could vividly imagine all the terrible possibilities and how it would all be his fault and- Gus put his hand on his shoulder, he hadn't even realized how fast he had been breathing, but Gus had. Willow also pulled her staff out, holding it ready for battle.

"Don't worry, Hunter the emperor's coven wants to get you, they'll have to get through us." Willow exclaimed.

 "We got your back, man, between the three of us we'll able to handle anyone no problem." Gus added. 

That's right, no matter how match Belos had tried to isolate him and leave him void of resources not connected to him, he had friends. He wasn't alone. 

"Thanks Gus, Thanks... captain." 

They crept closer to the coven scout, 

"I'm not kidding, even if he's "not here", I really need you get the information to him,"

"Information, what you said were vague concerning statements that- what do they even mean?" The dad said. 

"It's classified, but mostly really complicated and we're not entirely sure right now."

Hunter squinted his eyes, he had a vague sense of recognition of that particular voice, and mannerisms.

It clicked. 

"Steve?"He said stepping out. 

"Hunter?" Steve took off his mask, revealing his horn and friendly face. "Oh man it's good to see you. Some crazy stuff is happening at the castle right now, I-"

"I- I'm not going back, I don't care who they send," The familiar panic bubbled up but he pushed it down, holding his staff, Willow and Gus stepping up to his side "You don't understand what he's going to do to me, he'll kill me, no matter what he says, he's'"

"Woah, woah, Hunter, I do know, I'm" He stepped a bit closer lowering his voice, "part of the CATTs,Coven heads against the throne. Darius wanted me to check on you." 

"Steve?" Said Willow.

"CATTs?" Said Gus.

"Darius?" Said Hunter.

They remembered both of them, from their first meeting of Hunter, win at flyer derby, and preceding adventure almost to the emperor's coven. They had seemed nicer, than most people in the emperor's coven, at least compared to some coven heads in Darius' case. And Hunter fondly recalled the sewing lesson and pensta from Darius. Both nothing had ever hinted they were in the rebellion. 

"What about Darius? What happened that's so important."His voice cracked slightly, cutting himself before he said that he didn't tell me himself while Darius no longer hated him, he obviously wasn't high up on his list of priorities, Hunter was just an insignificant co-worker, that associated with him from time to time. Steve was a casual afterthought to tell him something he was too busy for. That had to be it. 

He face went stone cold serious, and Hunter couldn't help but get the feeling the news was more serious than he could ever imagined. Behind his back Willow and Gus shared a worried look. 

"It's the Emperor. He-" 

"Oh, coven scout, I was just about to ask for a status update, but it looks like you found him."

"A trap!" Gus cried. 

Instantly everyone sprang into action, Gus' dad that about half of everyone had forgotten he was there slammed the door. Hunter panic-teleported several feet outside the home, which was actually the worst thing he could have done, and came face to face with more coven scouts. Willow charged out pushing aside Steve with her vines, 

"NO! I mean-" Everyone ignored Steve, Gus accidentally stepped on his face which had the mask on again in a rush to get to Hunter. 

"Ow." He said. 

"Hunter hold on!" Gus cried, one of the scouts made a grab for him, an illusion took his place, and he grabbed his hand getting Hunter out of the way. Willow shot him into the sky with a spring flower.

Hunter renewed his grip on flapjack, he could handle this, push aside all of those pesky emotions of fear and anxiety and take down the enemies. This was just another mission. Another easily accomplishable objective. He teleported to the left kicking a short, stubby coven scout off balance, and teleporting behind him to push him over before he recover or make a grab.The battle raged on. Gus easily taking scouts out after unsettling them with powerful illusions. Willow using varied and dangerous plants to take others out. 

A stray bolt hit Flapjack out of his hand, he easily switched to bird form, flying back to Hunter but was blocked, by a wall of energy made by another scout. 
Disarmed, and now magicless, Hunter dodged the First scout, rolling out of the way. He looked to flapjack, just out of reach. A second scout approached him.

"Why do you keep hurting us, man, we only want to tell you something."  He said. Towering over him, his weapon in hand. 

The words echoed through his brain, every single time, he was told that. All the pain and hurt , all the scars. Why did you make me do this, Hunter? A hand was put on his shoulder a shallow facade of care and love to justify the pain and scars, and hurt, and sleepless nights, and endless days, and years and years of abuse. He had to move, he couldn't let Belos do this to him again. He had to, but he just stood, ready to take it, like he always was. Good at doing exactly was he was told. 

"GET AWAY FROM HIM!!!!" A furious shout of full of emotion and absolute rage broke through. It was Willow, but not the sweet, mellow girl everyone was used to. Her eyes blazed a furious green, giant vines thicker than a full-grown witch sprung out wildly with her arm she directed them full speed ahead at the poor scout. "DON'T YOU TOUCH HIM!"

They curled around his entire body, obscuring his entirety. Everyone else stopped to look at the dramatic scene, "Please,stop!" Begged the poor scout who had no idea what was going on. "I don't want to hurt him, I just want to tell him that he's the new Emperor!"  Everyone suddenly stopped fighting, realizing their was no actual reason. Except for flapjack who gave one last hard peck at the scout whose blast separated him from Hunter. 

"That's what I was trying to say, " Said Steve from where he was still restrained on the ground a few meters away during the entire fight. "Also Belos is dead."

"woah, woah, not dead, just temporarily absent" Corrected another scout. "He'll be back, we just need someone to fill in."

"And you expect us to just believe you, after you've been fighting us for the past five minutes and have been trying to take Hunter back to castle." Argued Gus. 
"Yeah," Said Willow still suspicious of the Guard who almost got to Hunter. 

"Um, I thought you would. I know you just escaped from the rebel insurgents, or whatever your reason for running away in the middle of a mission and abandoning your post for several days is, but we were trying to take him back to the castle so he can do all the emperor stuff, can't rule the boiling isles from Bonesborough after all." He tried to joke.  "please don't kill me." He whispered to the terrifying plant track witch in her Pajamas. 

Gus looked back at Hunter who was trying to decide how to handle this. He was breathing heavily at the mention of going back to castle and Belos, whatever was going on with him. At the moment inside hunter's head several different both distressing and conflicting facts whirled around, in a monstrous mess, his feelings of fear and the love and loyalty for Belos pushed and pulled at him from where he had tried to banish them. His brain narrowed in on the other thing the scout said to compensate for his loss of control.  You're the emperor Whatever that meant, emperor, basically what the scout said was that he was their superior and that was something he knew how to do. 

"If I'm really your superior, then I order you to.." He paused, his mind blanking out, it didn't actually matter what he said, right? This was just a distraction to call their bluff or whatever game the Emperor was playing. "Promote the owl lady to official wild witch ambassador. I will escort myself to the castle afterwards." It was the first thing that came to his mind, and he had no idea what it meant. 

Willow gave him a questioning look and released the guard who was clearly in no position to be a threat, he scampered off away from Willow. Gus also gave him an inquiring look, Hunter gave a quick shrug not really knowing where he was going any more than they did. 

"On it sir, so terribly sorry about the fighting, and trying to beat up your... personal squad... and" A quick glance from Gus sent him on his way. "I'll just be going now." 
The other guards seemed just as slow to leave. 

Hunter took a breath, putting on his best, authoritative voice, "I said that was an order. Go!" 

They picked up the pace,not before automatically putting up a gloved hand to salute.

"Oh course Gold- Lord Emperor Golden Guard." They said. 

And with that they were gone. 

Hunter's legs gave out the moment they disappeared from view, luckily Willow was there to catch him. Flapjack flew down to rest on his usual place at his shoulder. Chirping comfortingly. 

Everyone looked around at the aftereffects of the battle, the rubble strewn about and the upended bricks. Gus' chameleon palisman returned to curled up around his shoulders, and Clover hovered between Willow and Hunter buzzing this way and that. 

“What was that all about?” Willow finally asked. 

“I don’t know” Mumbled Hunter worriedly.

“Do you think… do you think they were telling the truth?” Willow asked, addressing the Slitherbeast in the room. 

That was the whole thing,wasn’t it. Hunter couldn’t believe his uncle was dead. Even with his curse he always seemed incapable to dying. How was he supposed to handle that after everything that had happened all his sinister plans, stretching over decades and empires and magical timeless beings, he would just be gone. Just like that Hunter wouldn’t have to wake up and have Belos tell him what to do or Hurt or Replace him. It was just simply incompatible. 

“We can’t risk it. “ Said Gus, “ Even if they are telling the truth, some of them seemed pretty convinced Belos would return.” 

He desperately wanted to believe that the man that had caused so much pain and anguish in Hunter’s life was dead. But he had been tricked too many times, by stories too much like what he wanted to hear. Emperor Belos especially was especially good at tricking people, and if what Hunter had told them after the Hexside was true. He had been doing it for longer than he could ever imagine. 

“Yeah, you’re right.” Hunter said, unknowingly relating to much of Gus’ internal reflections. 

He looked one more time at the last of the coven scouts as they faded out of view, he wondered if they were truly going to unquestioningly complete his fool’s errand.

       To answer this question we go now to the Owl house, where two Clawthorne sisters make a last minute effort, to escape the clutches of the Emperor’s Coven so they can live free to see their found family again. 

In a Hooty-less owl house Lillith preps a special glyph that will hopefully cover their escape and give them enough time to make it to the Knees. The inside is trashed, and part of the wall is covered in burns “warnings” "from the Emperor" to turn themselves in. Wordlessly Eda nods to Lillith. 

The attacks have been getting more and more relentless, they are almost ready.

“This is your last warning Owl lady and whoever is in the house with you.” The Emperor's covens squad inform them.

Lilith bristles, at her lack of mention, but Eda rolls her eyes. 

“On the count of three, we will enter and no matter what you do. There will be no mercy.” 

They tense up, ready for the blow to come. Lilith adjusts the strap on the bag of their supplies. Eda holds her clawed hand right above the Glyph to activate it. 
“1, 2, G-” 

“WaAAAAAAaaaaaiiiiiiiiiit!!!!!!!!!” A thinish scout comes running in through the woods, their cape flapping wildly behind them.  Everyone stops, Eda’s hand freezes an inch above the lines on the ground making the glyph. She can hear the Coven scouts all turn to look at the newcomer scout. 
The general leading the Charge, expresses an irritant sigh. 

“What’s so important, you had to interrupt the attack on the Owl Lady!!” 

The scout laughs nervously. “About that.” 

Eda and Lillith looked at each other. This was going much differently than expected. Should they leave now? What was so important?

“Psssssppspssss” Said the messenger. It was too quiet so they couldn't quite make out whatever they were saying. But the reactions of the General leading the mission is much more audible, and easily heard.

“I’m sorry, what?” 

More whispering. 

“WHAT!!!!!” 

More whispering. Slightly more hesitant. 

“WHAT IN THE NAME OF THE TITAN OF THE BOILING ISLES IS HAPPENING?!?!?!”  She screeches at the top of her lungs which was a lot louder than human lungs and really made it out there more than you could imagine. Rustling sounds, and the cry of stray guard alert the Clawthorne sisters, she was also taking it out on some poor scout. 

There was an awkward silence. Lilith sensed the atmosphere was unpleasant, and the guards had to do something they didn’t want to do. It was unlike anything she had ever experienced leading her own missions. 

“No, please, no, I don’t want to- please-” The General begged. Eda was really invested now, what the whole fuss was about?

“That’s what the Emperor said.” Said the Messenger scout quietly. 

There was a whole process of sounds of anger and frustration being let out. But it finally faded out ending with a annoyed grunt. 

“You there! You tell them!” Said the General. 

“Me-ah, Okay.” He said then drew a amplify glyph. Clearly wanting to hesitate, but too afraid to.

“Attention Owl lady, This is kinda awkward but The New Emperor has unofficially decreed you as the Wild Witch Ambassador. So we’re not actually taking you in, well we are, but you’re being promoted instead petrified or publicly executed. The attack is being called off, and if you could come with the castle to receive your honor, So yeah. Turns out promoted right before we were about to- well- but we didn't because of that whole whole thing, but-” He rambled awkwardly. 

For a moment there was no noise, except the rustling of the trees. And the occasional squawk of some local griffins. 

Then Eda doubled over laughing. Her cackling filled the rooms, so powerful and overwhelming she fell to the ground, still laughing. 

“What are they saying. You’re no longer wanted? It has to be a trick, or a lie, it’s too absolutely ridiculous, what does it even mean? But then what’s the point?” Lillith seriously considered. 

Eda was still rolling on the floor, almost out of breath from laughing. Still going just as hard. 

“Edalyn, please take this seriously!” Lilith said nudging her with her foot. 

“Seriously? less than a minute ago, they were coming after us. And now I’m being promoted, by the Emperor? How am I supposed to take this seriously?” She chortled in between breath still laughing.

“Well they think it’s serious. The Emperor’s coven would never take a lie this far, not when it comes wild magic, not when we were literally right in front of them, almost in their clutches. I think something is up.” 

Eda slowly wound down. Catching her breath. As absurd as the whole situation was, Lilith had a point. At the very least that weren’t attacking when there was literally no reason for them to not. 

She stood up.

“Well your the one who was head of The Emperor's coven for all those years. What do you think this is all about? Should we go out there?” Eda said. 

Lilith paused to consider that. “Maybe, we should. At least to update our knowledge of the situation. But be on the utmost alert Edalyn.” 

“Got it Lils’,” She reached into her pocket, grabbing some premade Glyphs. “We go in, question the scouts, and take them out if needed.” 

“Let’s just go already.” Sighed Lillith she opened the door. But Eda started thinking about something else she just realized, they said she was going back to the Castle. Raine was a covenhead, and mostly avoided her by staying at places reserved for higher-ups. If this did tun out legit, Raine would have to have to talk to her now. They wouldn’t be able to avoid her is she was "wild witch ambassador" whatever that meant. She strolled out of the Owl house determined. 

She could hear Lillith discussing something with a scout up ahead. 

“A new Emperor! That Golden Brat!” She squawked. Everyone looked at her. 

“Heh, I mean-” 

      The new Emperor in question was still in his PJs laying on the couch at the Porter’s house because a certain Captain Willow Park had “insisted”.
 Everyone else was fast asleep, one arm of Gus’ hung loosely off the bed, and his snores filled the air. Willow slept to his left in a teal sleeping bag. And Flapjack dozed away curled up in a nest of blankets right above him. But Hunter couldn’t sleep, and this time it wasn’t even the fear of nightmares that kept him awake. It was his sigil, and Perry Porter’s sigil, and Willow’s Dad’s sigils, and Principal Bump, and almost every single adult on the boiling isles, and then some. If Belos was alive, and nobody did anything they would all die. But another thought had entered his head. Hypothetically Belos was dead, but nothing had changed. Emperor coven activity had slowed, he definitely noticed that. But he was still Hunted. Sigil-marking kept on going. Wild witches were still shamed. And the fear of Belos still affected the society of the Boiling Isles. 

Here he was, sleeping in comfort surrounded by his friends and people who told them they would protect him while he did nothing. What did he do after the Coven scout got a hold of him? Nothing. He just stood there, useless. Everyone here had done so much for him, risked their livelihoods and he had done nothing to earn it. To repay even a fraction. Uncle would be ash- he quickly stopped that train of thought. Rolling over as if that would get rid of it. 
He remembered how close Gus had come to getting an abomination sigil. If Adrian Graye came back, if any of them changed their minds and came back. It would be all his fault. 

He stood up, his time after escaping from the emperor’s mind has been a haze, survival instincts had taken over, and he had let them mostly run the show. Even after hexside he was still running on them. But now he had a purpose. The emperor’s coven had never done anything like this ever, at the very least he needed to gather information that might be beneficial and if what they said was true, then maybe he could stop this whole thing. 

He scrambled up, fully awake now. His mind immediately went to preparations. The first order of business was clothes, Replacement Emperor or not he couldn’t show up like this. Even if the whole fight he had been wearing this to this embarrassment. 

While most of Gus’ clothes were too small for him. He found a shirt that fit well enough and put on his old pants. His mind kept whirring, now that that was done, what was the next order of business. Food? No. Transportation? Hmm. He would need to figure that out. The castle would be too far on foot, he’d have to acquire some faster mode of transportation.

He crouched by the window, the door would be too obvious and less defensible. He needed a clear and close exit, and this window worked nicely. But before he could jump out of the window there was a sharp tug on his hair. 

“Ow.” He cried backing away from Flapjack to escape the cardinal’s clutches. 

Chirp. Chirp. Where are you going Hunter? He chirped. 

Hunter froze, this wasn’t just a friendly question, it was an interrogation. 

“Oh you know, just a quick walk, some fresh air, no need for you to get up!” The attempt to fool his palisman was almost surely a fool's errand but he had to try.
You are leaving. Alone? Why? Tweeted flapjack suspiciously 

"I just- I not-" He sighed. "I'm going to the castle for the good of the boiling isles and... my friends. I have to." 

Danger outside! Stay inside, inside safe with friends who love Hunter as much as Flapjack does. 

"I can't. We don't know what's going on out there! Belos is up to no good with the day of unity, but if he's really... dead. Then I could do something, actually be useful like I used to be." 

Hunter is always useful, but doesn't need to be. Bad man has no good judgement.

Hunter sighed. "I don't have time to argue with you Flapjack!" 

He brushed past the bird, wondering how flapjack always managed to be so loyal and so annoying at the same time. 

But halfway out the window, Flapjack whizzed past him. 

Hunter is stubborn, but Flapjack is more stubborn. If Hunter has to leave, flapjack will go with to protect him. 

He transformed into staff mode as Hunter hopped on, steering mid-air to small nook in the night market he had left a few things he should probably reacquire now that he was going back to the castle. With flapjack's help he'd probably be able to pick them up and make to the castle in good time. 

"You can just never leave me alone, can you, ya' little rascal." Hunter said fondly.

Never chirped Flapjack back. 

Chapter Text

Hunter POV

His hands held fast to a familiar object. The Golden Guard mask. The mask was the exact same. Nothing about it had changed, but everything about him had. It almost felt like it ridiculed him. The way it completely concealed his face. While he was the golden guard, he was something else. A perfect extension of Belos, the soldier to aspire to. The Golden sheen of perfection mocked him. 

"You were never real, were you? For any one of us."

Hunter wondered what the other Golden guards were like, especially the one before him that was Darius' mentor. Did they love the feel of fuzzy socks? Did they find an interest in wild magic despite everything saying they shouldn't? What did they find out in the end, that did them in? 

Before the only meager scraps of information he would get would be how they were all so much better than him. Or how they disappointed Belos and he was expected to do better. 

Darius did tell him, he ended up making his predecessors proud, but that seemed ages before he found out what being the Golden Guard really meant. 

Tweet. Tweet Hunter, you should probably go. Flapjack said to him.

Flapjack was right. He got up from his comfortable spot on the dirty ground. His predecessors wouldn’t think anything of him, they were dead and supposedly so was Belos. But he was not. So he was going to do something. 

Hunter sucked in his breath. His cape was still at the owl house, and too far away, but the armor and uniform had been collected and donned. He put the mask over his face, for better or worse, whatever the title meant now. He was once more the Golden Guard. 

“You ready flapjack?” He asked. 

Flapjack chirped his response. 

“Yeah, me too.” 

And with that, they took off. And Hunter prepared to face the Emperor’s Coven as the Golden Guard returned. 

Eda POV

“Are we ther-” 

“I already told you to keep your questions to a mandatory level only.” The General scout retorted to Eda’s ninth time asking are we there yet.  Her fists were curled, and she marched straight ahead refusing to face Eda. 

“Pbbbbt. I’m just making sure you guys aren’t wasting my time.” Eda responded. No real attempts of retribution had been made even to all her persistent poking and prodding, (and that was saying something, if there was one thing Eda was good at it was annoying authority figures).

She glanced back at Lillith who was in her, this-one-thing-doesn’t-make-sense-so-I’m going-to-obsessively-research-until-it-does phase and was questioning over half the escorts very aggressively. Now seemed a good time to see how far she could take this. 

She coughed, very ostentatiously. 

“Where can a Wild Witch Ambassador get some Apple Blood around here?” Eda said.

She put on a high-pitched obnoxious tone. 

“Well there is-” Started one of the scouts.

“Don’t answer that, Lyler.” The general responded curtly. 

Eda narrowed her eyes. “I asked for a refreshment, isn’t it your job as lackeys to get me some. You know now that you’re not trying to capture and annihilate me?”

The general pushed past another scout who was trying their hardest not to roll over at the first sign of authority. 

“We don’t get anything but a conformatorium cell ready, for you Wild witches,” He spat. “With your impure magic” 

Okay, at first Eda was just curious how willing they’d be to move past everything, but now this was getting personal.

“Well this Wild Witch, happens to be your superior, as of this moment.” She said.

“You’re not our superior yet, I’m sure this was just a ridiculous misunderstanding with the emperor,” He said, giving the messenger scout a dirty side-look. “And as soon as it is resolved, you will be executed by the will of the titan again for the whole of the boiling isles to see!” 

Eda scowled, and vowed. Before they reached the castle, she was getting her apple blood. 

“I’m sure the new Emperor would be thrilled that you denied the first request of his newly appointed Wild Witch Ambassador, and treated her so poorly on top of that.” 

The general’s glare out of the corner of her eye deepened. 

“Who knows, maybe he would be thrilled, after I do him the service of ousting his enemy no. 1!”

Lyler behind was getting really uncomfortable with the arguing and piped up. 

“Look, I can grab the apple blood, super quick. It’s really no big deal.” He said, trying to defuse the situation.

“Lyler, don’t you dare move a single deviation from the direct course to the castle.” 

“Why thank you for helpful assistance, Lyler.”  Both Eda and the General said at the same time. 

Lyler froze up, unsure which direction to take, which anger was worth risking. 

Lillith bumped into him, so focused on her inquiry, at some point in time she had gotten a research pad, and a history book to compare notes. Which dropped to the ground with an awkward clatter. 

“Why did we stop?” Lillith asked, adjusting her glasses. The scout next to her, who actually appreciated being able to vent to someone about the new boss and unprecedented change, quickly went to pick up her books. 

“Oh it’s nothing, just the scouts picking up some Apple Blood for me.” Eda said passive aggressively. Daring them to argue. 

“Seriously Edalyn, prioritizing apple blood, at a time like this.” She huffed 

“Very well, I’ll take some sparkling spider tear cognac.” She said continuing on. Many of the guards followed the her as the one completely confident witch leading the group even if it was unintentional. They awkwardly walked past Eda and the general. 

“OH, no! I refuse to allow this, you are not getting any apple blood, and NO ONE is getting any refreshments!!!!”

Ten minutes later the castle doors opened and Eda strolled into it with a fairy chalice full of apple blood, and rhinestone sunglasses. Lillith followed behind rolling her eyes, as she sipped the cognac.

The coven guards followed behind them meekly, the general at the back absolutely fuming, and struggling to keep her seething in.

“I can’t believe they actually got you the glasses.” Lilith whispered. 

“Yeah, me too.” Eda said, taking them off to examine the rhinestones. “That part was just a joke. I wonder how much I could convince someone of their worth though.”

Her money musings were interrupted, with the arrival of yet more coven guards, with a golden figure of importance that could be seen in the background approaching. 

Lilith gripped the cup, it was strange being back here after all this time, with a new emperor to the boot. They had come here in peace, with a promise of no fighting, but who knows what this new emperor- “The golden guard” would do. He was an arrogant suck-up to Belos and everything he stood for. At least as far as she knew, Eda had mentioned a few run-ins with him recently, that were different, but the results were too… inconclusive to suggest any sort of change in behavior from the vague retellings Eda had told her. 

But to her surprise, the attention of the new Emperor wasn’t on them at all, instead he was arguing with a poor coven scout that looked miserable. 

“Your assistance is really highly unnecessary. I can handle this myself.” The Golden Guard/Emperor said firmly. His cape was missing, it was still at the owl house Eda noted. It hadn’t been replaced, and Lillith beside her wondered if any of his clothes he was wearing was. He didn’t look at all like an Emperor or the haughty Golden guard she knew, even his ivory gold mask was off, clenched tightly in his gloved hand. 

“But, er- um- Sir, you really don’t understand how dangerous these criminals are. They took down the Emperor!” He cried, before immediately retracting his enthusiasm. 

“Er- the previous Emperor Belos, before you.” 

“I am aware, I’m not an idiot.” He said coldly. 

The guard sweated a little, trying his best to appease him. 

“I only meant-” 

“Look, I’m going to be taking precautions, but he has… necessary information that I have to know.” Hunter said. 

“I deeply apologize for my imprudence, I-” 

Ahem. Eda coughed loudly, deciding for everyone it was time to get things going. 

The other guards immediately sprung into action, prompted by their superior. 

“Lord Emperor B- Golden Guard, we brought the owl lady, newly appointed Wild Witch Ambassador, as per your order.” They bowed before him, and as the only ones who didn’t bow Lillith and Eda could see Hunter was uncomfortable with the actions, and also seemed a little confused by the gesture. 

“Uhhh, good job, I guess. Uh- thank you for your service to this important job, that is super important.Just so extremely for… reasons.” There was an awkward silence, the Emperor just stood there he didn’t even look threatening he just looked like some poor kid desperate for approval, lost for personal direction despite everyone looking to him. 

“Emperor, sir- lord Golden- Nope can’t do this. Kid! Can we speak in private about… certain matters.”  Eda said, breaking the silence.

A few of the guards bristled at her imprudence, but Hunter looked relieved. 

“YES! I mean that’s what I was going to say, you’re all dismissed.” 

They scurried out the corridor, Lilith hesitated but continued after a confirmation from Eda, she set her almost empty cup of sparking spider tears on an empty chair before closing the doors behind them. She sent Eda a worried look, before sealing them completely leaving them alone. 

Eda also set her Fairy Chalice down, she turned to face Hunter, the Emperor, preparing her words carefully. 

“Kid, I-”

“Did something happen to luz? Where is she?” Hunter bursted out. 

Eda blinked, a tad surprised, she appraised the bad but sad boy who was now the emperor, and surmised he seemed genuinely worried. At this point it seemed best, to exchange as much information as possible, no use holding back. 

“Luz is fine, I sent her away with King and Hooty to look for… reinforcements hopefully, King-” 

“Your pet rat?” 

She chuckled at that. “You won’t be able to call him that after this. He got a letter from someone who knew his family. I sent him Luz and Hooty to see them and finally find what type of demon king is, and to keep them out of the emperor’s clutches.” Eda told him.

“Very tactically sound decision. I suppose.” Hunter said

“Just wanna keep my family safe, y’know.”  Eda said

“Maybe I do,” HUnter looked away nervously.  “you won’t tell anyone about any… sensitive information in this room tonight, right?”

“You’re the Emperor right now, and my boss, which is all kinds of weird, but either way kid,  nothing you don’t want to tell, I won’t as long you do the same. Okay?”

Eda held out her hand, Hunter looked at it suspiciously before his hand shot out grabbing eda’s before she could retract and say “too slow”. She did seem serious, but you could never be sure with the Human’s compatriots. 

“Deal.” Hunter said, Then he turned towards a random statue on the side of the wall.

“I guess it's safe for you to come out then, Flapjack.”

Eda turns as well, and a small red cardinal soars into the picture, he tweets happily making a loop around them before settling on Hunter’s shoulder. 

“You’ve got yourself a palisman.” Eda says and for a moment Hunter tenses, too used to the vague punishment always hanging over head of what would happen should anyone (Belos) find out. 

“I’m impressed.” She laughs, and Hunter relaxes again, 

“I didn’t really “get” a palisman Belos would-”  Hunter whispered quietly, almost too quiet for Eda to hear, but cut himself off. “ It was more that he just stuck around and refused to leave.” He finishes, pretending the implication that a living creature that Hunter loved and took care of would get eliminated simply for being around Hunter. 

Eda laughed. “I’m happy for you, you seem like a good match, but seriously Hunter, what happened? Is Belos really… dead? Are you okay?” 

She gently rests her hand on his shoulder, a semblance of comfort or something he supposes. But he shrugs it off. He’s too many of false promises of safety and appreciation for them to mean anything. 

Hunter tugs at his sleeve going back to thinking of the question, those were good questions, ones he’s wondering himself. Ones he needs to address. He takes a deep breath readying himself for a long conversation. 

Behind him, the emperor’s throne is empty and he sits down, not at all thinking about the significance behind it. 

And then he starts to talk.

He mostly skips what he learned from the emperor’s mind, Eda already knows most of it from Luz, and the rest hopefully she doesn’t find out yet or anyone ever.No one needs to know how much he justified every lie and every atrocity the emperor did, or that he only changed his mind selfishly when it only involved him, and by them it was almost too late. He remembers how dark it was. 

But he does tell Eda about the Emperor’s coven at Hexside, and the preceding attack with Steve and what he thought was a lie about the CATTS but turned out wasn’t. 

“The “catts”, that sounds kind of like…” Eda mutters. 

“What?” Hunter asks. 

“Do you specifically know which covenheads, against the throne?” She settles on. 

Hunter rubs the back of his neck, Flapjack is nestled comfortably in his hair, resting a bit from all the previous flying around. 

“I mean, he mentioned Darius, but not anyone else.” Hunter said.

“Oh, well that’s someone I guess?” Eda says disappointed. 

Hunter can’t help but feel he said the wrong thing, but pushes down the urge to obsessively go through everything he said and make up for his mistake. He continues on, telling the state the Emperor’s Coven was in when he returned and the interesting reactions to his return as well. 

Eda nods, adding her information which isn’t much, they tell each almost everything. But it leads to much avoided big question. 

“What are you going to do? Now that you’re the emperor?” She asks.

“I don’t know, “ Hunter says nervously, pulling on his strand of hair sticking out, “I have to do something, I should be able to stop the day of unity, that’s the main thing. I should probably also-“ 

All the sudden Hunter stands alert, he tenses and tackles Eda out of nowhere. Eda has barely a flip second to wonder before a blast of energy incerinates the statue right behind where they were standing. 

Eda summons Owlbert, but Hunter clearly has it handled as she sees him go into “fighting mode”. He dodges the seemingly random bolts, getting closer and closer to the source. Flapjack in staff mode fires back a bolt or two at the same time. She can hear crude cursing from the mysterious enemy, and narrowly dodges another bolt, 

Hunter is furiously flying though dangerously close to smashing into the wall. Instead he jumps off his staff holding on to flapjack still in flight mode as runs a few steps across the wall before propelling  off, he flies through the air, legs wobbling a little and tumbles into an unnoticed crevice up above. Eda follows him now that she has an opening. But when she gets there all she sees is an abandoned spell-blaster and angry-bad-sad-emperor-boy. 

“Curses!” Hunter yells slamming his fist into the stone. “She got away!” Flapjack returns from scouting ahead, tweeting disappointingly, having found nothing. 

“You know who that was, Kid?” Eda asks.

He certainly sounds like he does, and starts panicking over it as well. 

“Oh my gosh, what if she knows how much I’m a fake? What if she tells everyone? And everyone comes after me again, because I'm such a terrible leader I couldn’t hold up for even a day! The only thing I’m good for is unquestioning obedience, to someone whose dead and tried to kill me, and all the others over and over-and-and-”

He keeps muttering clearly not listening to her, getting more erratic. It’s not that his fears aren’t valid but she is pretty sure the emperor’s coven is coming in for better or worse. That means he needs to be coherent to some degree. 

She takes a deep breath. No, shouldn’t rush it, just do the best she can. 

“Kid, Hunter deep breaths. Slow and steady.”

Hunter catches on pretty fast, flapjack rubs against him and he absentmindedly strokes his wooden feathers. He takes a deep breath in, Eda sees four fingers up and down. It seems like had happened before, though thankfully he also knows how to deal with it. 

“Okay- I- Okay. I’m good” Hunter says. 

The guards burst in. 

“Emperor, we heard the sounds of an intruder! Is everything okay?” The scouts call out. 

Hunter stands up straight, adjusting his uniform. Preparing to teleport down. 

“Thanks for… that, owl lady, I’m going to see if I can handle this. You should probably go.” 

“Wait!” Eda grabs onto his shoulder, feeling guilty for the flinch he barely suppresses. Eda steps back a little sorry. 

“What about Raine, the bard coven head, I know they’re in prison but I need to speak to them.”

“I’ve been trying to talk to a couple of the covenheads myself, but everyone’s been really paranoid about it. Even though I’m the emperor I still have a hard time, half of it’s getting them to believe me, and half is getting them to not doubt my orders. Some of them still follow it unquestioningly but that also feels wrong now. Hunter states, looking forlorn. 

“But I might be able to talk with them today, I’ll see if i can get them-” He starts again.

“Just- just tell Raine something, okay, tell them something from me if you can.” Eda asks him, practically begs, but he nods nonetheless so she relays him her message to her Rainestorm. 

Darius POV

“NO, for the seventh time we refuse to believe you acted alone! Who were your accomplices! The traitors,scumbags! When you confess we’ll feed tham’ to the-”

“As motivating as this speech, I really just don’t feel in the mood. Maybe another couch, and some refresher cream would put me more in the mood.”  Darius said, unimpressed with the preceding of the interrogation, he examined the state of his gloves from on a high quality lounge chair. 

“Ha! Don’t think that pathetic trick will work on me” His breaks off in an embarrassing whisper. “Again, for the eleventh time.”

“Hmm. Yes, I suppose 11 containers of skin sanitizers, and the lounge will be sufficient for now, in keeping away from all those germs!  Ugh! When’s the last time you cleaned this place!” The guard opens his mouth to say. Darius holds up an elegantly gloved hand. 

“Don’t answer that.” A devious look enters his eye, “Technically I wasn't the one who came up with the plan, it was Terra snapdragon, she planned and executed the whole plan except for my tiny assistance in it. ”  He tells the guard,

“A- hmm, yes, thanks, keep going.” The guard said, excited to finally get some answers. 

“I think I’ll take it from here.” A new witch comes in; it was the new warden, Darius narrowed his eyes. 

“Are you sure? I was-” The first guard asks. 

The warden doesn’t wait for an answer pushing him out of his seat.

“Oh, Okay then, I’ll just be going I guess.” And the coven scout scampered out the door. 

“What was the plan, how many were involved?” The warden demands calmly. 

“It was just me, but Terra Snapdragon-”

“No.”

“Pardon.” Darius says.

“I don’t think you worked alone, in fact I think you worked with the bard coven head raine, and the beast covenhead eberwolf. You know why?

Darius does his best not to give any visible reaction. 

“Why should I know what possessed you to come to such a random conclusion as to me teaming up with the traitor I helped bring in, and a mangy beast who never listens to me?”  Darius spouted in his snooty tone as per usual. 

“Why it’s because Eberwolf and Raine, also insisted that they were working alone, with no one else involved. So I thought it was interesting coincidence that you did as well.”

The satin gloved grip on the arm rest almost imperceptibly tightened, Darius worked hard to keep up the uninterested, mildly annoyed expression and the not fury he was feeling under the surface. 

Angrily he thought, Why would you be so ridiculously selfless and stubborn at the most inconvenient time possible Raine and Eber! Disregarding the fact that he had done the exact same.

“I could get them out here right now and confirm or maybe just take them one by one, it’s not like I don’t have options. Many, many options” 

“What’s stopping you then, your impeccable moral code?” Darius spat.

“It’s because I don’t need to, the Emperor himself is coming to interrogate you. And I just came in here to tell you I dare you to try something, because I’m just itchin for any excuse to come in here, and get my hands dirty.”

He knocked over the sanitizer bottles on the edge of the cell, and then spat on Darius' robe for dramatic effect. Darius frowned, wiping the hideous blob off. He tried his best to keep a stony face of apathy, But this was bad news. Really bad news. Not only were the majority of his allies in jail, or fugitives now. But whatever had been done to the emperor wasn’t even enough to keep him out for two days. 

The door started to close behind the Warden as he exited giving one last threatening stare, a gloved hand after the Warden had gone and the door had almost closed peeked out. A new, unfamiliar figure stepped into the room. Darius peered the dubious lightening in the cell, something seemed off about the emperor. But he couldn’t allow any weakness.

“Don’t think you’re going to get anything from me. Belos.” He spat. “I know what you did, and I will not forget anytime soon. Do your worst.”

“You know what Belos really did?” A much different, more “annoying” voice many have said spoke out surprising him.

Darius jumped up to the edge of the cell, peering through the bars. A younger figure stepped into light. He had no cape, or the mask Belos typically wore. His eyes were red, and a stray strand of hair flopped on the side of his uncertain face. 

“Little prince? Where’s the Emperor? And speaking of, what happened to you?” Darius said, referencing the after events of the trip into the emperors mind. 

“Heh, long story. But as for the first question, I’m sort of the Emperor now?” Hunter said. 

Darius blinked, Once, then twice. 

“Well, that’s.. Something. I have several questions I must say. “

Hunter coughed. 

“Actually so do I, are you associated with the Catts? Were you one of the rebels in the night market? What happened with Belos? Did you always know everything about the Golden Guards?.” 

The little prince was the Emperor, Emperor Belos was dead and the Golden Guard who thought for sure he would have to watch die either way by the emperor through loyalty or by his hand was succeeding him. And despite everything about the situation, or maybe in spite of it Darius chuckled

“Slow down little prince. Well I guess I can’t call you that anymore.” Darius said a little sadly. 

He cleared his throat getting back to the subject on hand. 

“You are correct on the first two inquiries, in fact I sent Steve to check on you, to see if you were in any danger, but I’m glad to see it was unneeded.”

Hunter looked sheepish at that, but Darius continued on. 

“As you know, the spell to enter the Emperor’s mind did not exactly have the results” His face soured. “the “catts” needed, so me and the other covens heads against Belos decided to make a last ditch effort to take him down. I’m glad to see it worked somewhat…Obviously he’s not here, so either way he’s no longer a problem.”

“Yeah. Good thing too, he would definitely not approve of what I’m going to say in the publicity release tomorrow.“ Hunter said.

“Sounds like it’s going to be interesting,” Darius said. “But speaking of, what exactly did you see in the Emperor’s mind that changed you so much?”

Hunter laughed nervously,looking like he had seen the depths of the abyss. “you know, just more proof that Belos is a terrible emperor, person, and uncle, all the stuff you already knew.” He looked away, and Darius wanted to press the question but this was not the right time for it. Not to mention he was clearly not in the position to.

“Hm, anything you can do about my lovely accommodations.’ he drolled, gesturing to his surroundings.

Hunter frowned, “It was honestly a nightmare convincing them to even let me talk to you. I always thought being in charge would have made listening to me easier. But anyways I’ll see if I can discreetly get you moved, though if I do It’ll be under a pretense, so you shouldn’t act too happy.”

“I am an excellent actor, so that shouldn’t be a problem. I mean everyone thought I supported the emperor for years.” Darius said. 

“That’s true.” Hunter said, but quietly, so Daius wasn’t able to sense a small hint of bitterness in his voice. 

And that was that, Hunter turned away opening the door, but right before stepping out he paused. 

“Darius,” Hunter said, “can I ask a question?”

Darius paused at the somber tone, Hunter and him seemed to be getting along fine, but there was still a gap, years of secrets and shunning and isolation that no amount of sewing lessons would fix for now. 

“What is your question, little prince?”

“What really happened to the previous golden guard, your mentor?” Hunter asked. 

“Nothing that will ever happen to you, as long as I can help it.” Darius told him.

That was all Darius could say, but Hunter accepted it like had to most things, and left him alone in the Cell of Belos’ Castle.

Raine POV

Raine was nervous. They usually were nowadays. If it wasn’t about talking to a large crowd of people as their job, it was about the fact that all of their co-workers were waiting for the right moment to stab them in the back. Usually before they had had some form of safe place to go to, where the feelings of nervousness were just the venomflies they got in their stomach every time they saw Eda with her hair up, or in a new dress or just in general. But now Eda wasn’t even safe anymore, not even to see as friends, and there was likely nothing they could do to protect her. 

They hoped the Emperor’s coven had bought the lie about it being their plan alone. Even though Darius insisted they were a terrible actor, they had been able to put on quite a performance in public for the last few weeks even to.. Eda. 

The door creaked open ominously interrupting their musings. Raine found themselves astonished at who came out. 

“Hunter? What are you doing here?” They said. 

Hunter looked anxious, Raine would know. He moved cautiously but also seemed in a rush.  Raine and hunter faced each other cold cell dividing them on either side. 

“No time to explain, well there realistically there should be time to explain a little bit. Belos did die, so your plan worked. I talked to Darius. You guys should be fine as long as everyone believes you aren’t. Belos is a human and wants to kill everyone. I probably should have made sure Eda and Darius knew about that but I don’t knowhow much anyone know about that other than Luz. And Eda is also fine because she’s been promoted, because I’m emperor.” 

He said all in one breath. 

Raine stopped for a moment to process all that. 

“What-” 

The door rattled outside and Hunter jumped. 

“Okay, looks like basically we’re out of time,” Hunter announced, “wish I had one of the Human’s invisibility glyphs.” He muttered. 

“I mostly came here to tell you, Eda says…”

And at that Raine held their breath.  

“She wants to talk for real this time. She says she’s not taking no for an answer, and I quote "even though you’re a mess without me.” 

Hunter said sheepishly, deciding to add a bit of commentary, “I assume communication broke down at some point and you are now opting to reestablish a functioning network line, and the last part was some sort of secret code. So, uh good luck. Let me know how I can be of service.”

Raine looked at him a bit weird at that, it was typical for coven heads to use Hunter as an errand boy for fun, and laugh as he tripped over himself to please their every whim. Raine themself never used him that way, except for little things, when he refused to take a break but desperately needed a lighter workload. They weren’t sure what it meant, if even as the Emperor he was still in that mindset. Hopefully they would be able to talk about it with Eda, maybe even Darius and Eber depending on what Hunter was able to do. 

“Thank you, Hunter. I’m glad you’re relatively safe, I know this can’t be easy for you.” 

“Wh-What are you talking about, I’m fine. I have a bed, people aren’t trying to kill me anymore. They even listen to me. Mostly. And don’t hurt me or yell at me. And even… Belos is gone, so I am doing great in fact!” His voice cracked, and his expression seemed on the verge of panic, but there was really nothing Raine could do right now. 

The door rattled again as someone came even closer, and Hunter swiveled on his foot and made a mad dash toward the door. He only paused for a moment to say.

“Until I can make contact again, coven head Raine.”

Then silently as he could, he slipped out. 

“Good Luck Hunter, I’m interested in how things will go with you in charge.” Raine whispered. 

Far away from the castle in a long-dead titan’s skull, below the surface. Where a finished portal lay waiting to be used, missing the critical component of Titan’s blood and the Key. A most curious creature lay in wait. 

They lay dormant, patiently waiting for oh too long already. For patience did not suit their childish nature, not one bit. Two eerie eyes opened on his face, divided like a crescent moon. The starchild circled the room, examining everything with vague interest, roaming over the branding sigil device. Tracing the many broken bodies and empty skeletons of the previous golden guards with little attention. 

“Hmm… Philly is sure taking his sweet time, and here I thought the day of unity was soooooo important.” He said.

The collector squeezed his eyes tight, stretching every bit of power they had in this trapped form to see what was happening outside. 

Then they burst out laughing. An off putting giggling that echoed distorted through the cavern, continuing on and on.

They took form next to the ledge where hundreds of grimwalkers that had failed to live up to the standards of a dead human’s brother had met what Belos called “due punishment” 

“I can’t believe one of Phllip’s little grimwalkers is in charge, I wanted to play with one for sooo long, phillip is so boring sometimes, well most of the time, but they always seemed fun! I always see what it’d be like to play with one, but phillip always insisted it was against the rules or whatever." 

The collector curled around the portal door, tracing its every intricacy until it was totally covered in darkness. 

"And the best thing is that they think he's really dead." The collector hollered.

He started laughing again, shrieking with delight. New plans for playtime with a different playmate were being devised until Phillip returned. 

And the collector was right, as outside the castle a pile of sludge that had been deposited outside the throne after the covenhead fiasco- one that had been formerly known as the Emperor gurgled and shuddered, twisting writhing in it’s gruesome form and for just a split second vaguely responding a humanoid man.

Chapter Text

Willow park was having a wonderful dream. There were talking viper lillies, and gentleman fish-folk. She was wearing an outfit she had once seen Luz draw from that Azura book of hers. There was a monochrome rainbow in the sky, and in the back of her mind she knew none this was real, or even made sense, but what’s wrong with indulging a fantasy once in a while. She skipped along a cobblestone forest floor. Laughing as the flowers danced along with her. 

All the sudden the sky grew dark, and fearsome wind sent the flowers and pleasant scenery flying. A giant ladybug with Emperor belos mask entered the scene. The wings vibrating menacingly.

Anime Dream willow looked over at the gathering storm with a gasp!

“What are you doing?” 

“I am doing a super evil diabolical plan of nefarious, because I’m a terrible person whose capable of no other thing.” The lady-bug emperor Belos said in exaggerated motions with it’s antennas and insect legs. His voice happened to sound like Hooty’s, but that was just a finer detail.

“And how will you do that, Belos!” Willow challenged, stretching her fellow palisman Clover. Assuming a pose of strength and grace. 

“Heheheheheh , this is how! Behold what I’ve done with Caleb/Hunter!” He bellows, grabbing a curtain off to reveal.

Gasp!

Hunter tied up, dangling above pit of boiling toxic water. 

“Please, captain! I need you to save me!”

“Oh no! Caleb, Hold on!” The moonlight glances mysteriously off her glasses. Because now its night all the sudden. That's just how this dream's going, apparently. “I’m coming.”

She holds her staff out zooming in to rescue hunter, and stop Ladybug Belos.

  The rope holding Hunter suddenly snaps,  but Willow catches him in her arms. 

"Hunter." Willow says. Looking into hunter's beautiful crimson eyes. 

 "Willow." Hunter says. Staring at her as well. 

"Let's take this ladybug down!" They both agreed. 

Hunter pulled flapjack out, Gus and Luz, even amity all joined together giving Belos an absolute Beatdown.

Hunter and willow even used a special combo move to finish him off. 

As Belos slowly died/exploded in the background Willow stared into hunter's shoujo anime eyes.

“Captain I-” He said. 

“Willow! Willow, wake up!” Another different voice suddenly interrupted her. 

She shot straight up.

"Wait hunter, I-"

"You already know about Hunter?"

"Hunter?" Her grogginess lingered as did as the vague recollection and embarrassment of the dream she just had. She remembered staring into his dreamy eyes. Holding his hand while they beat the stuffin and stuff out of Belos. 

She turned her face away to hide her blush, groping around for her glasses. 

Glasses acquired. Composure recovered. She refreshed her mind and turned back around. 

"Okay. What about Hunter?" Willow asked. 

"He's missing!" Gus exclaimed. 

"Oh, he's probably just taking a walk, or running an errand. I’m sure he'll be back in a little bit." 

"He's been gone six in the morning."

Willow looked at the clock and blanched.  9:49 AM, it was already almost ten. 

"Why did I sleep so late, actually Gus why were you up at 6, I know that Hunter hasn’t yet grasped the concept of sleeping in,but you’re usually snail-trail slow riser.”

“Yeah, my dad woke me up, he had to leave super early for a “Super important exclusive story” I had some Spooky charms for breakfast, but then I realized Hunter was gone, and y’know.” 

Gus said as he gestured to Hunter (and Flapjack’s) continued absence. 

“Okay, I am getting a bit worried.” Willow said, biting her nails. 

“You think?!?!?!  Hunter doesn’t know how how to interact normally with people! What if someone tries to take advantage of him, or hurts him and he beats them within an inch of their life!?!?!?” 

“Okay, okay, don’t panic.” Willow said, she gripped her fists, and scanned the room. “You get the surrounding areas, and I’ll check to see if anything is amiss around the house.”

“On it.” Gus nodded. 

Willow scrambled up the stairs, summoning Clover to her. She looked into one of the nearest rooms. Nothing, She swiveled to the left, before she could take another step though her scroll started ringing. She jumped, but reluctantly answered.

“Willow, have you seen the new publicity release of the Emperor’s coven?”  A young witchlet, with a hook through her left ear told her through the screen.

“Viney! Is it important, Hunter just went missing, I’m worried something happened to him, wait did-” 

“Uh, no, I mean yes- sort of? Look I really think you need to the watch the broadcast.” 

Willow bit her lip, that was not the best sign. Horrible thoughts of what could have happened to Luz, Eda, especially Hunter if the emperor's coven had them whirled through her mind like a wild fearnado. 

She minimized viney’s video call, and searched up the Emperor’s coven broadcast. There was a slight moment of hesitation, nothing involving Hunter with the emperor’s coven was ever a good sign. But she had to know, especially if Hunter was in trouble. She clicked on the live broadcast.

“--ormerly beloved emperor Belos, but now some words from our new Emperor formerly known as the golden Guard."

The camera zooms in on Hunter, he’s in a slightly altered much more fancy golden guard attire, with the same mask on. He stands there a bit awkwardly, the difference in size and what everyone is used to is clearly displayed. 

“Well,” Awkward cough, cough, “Thank you for all coming, citizens of the boiling isles, I know everyone must be rather surprised at the… passing of Belos. I know Belos actions of these past few days, have been surprising, and there are just so many things that don’t make sense, Leaving you alone, grasping at straws to make any sense-” maybe a few more things.

His voice become more and desperate as Willow realized he was clearly not talking about the Emperor’s death and no one else was thinking about that specific situation he described. 

Hunter looked away, recovering for a second, 

“But it’s clear, that as "flawless" as our previous emperor, he made some mistakes.” 

Everyone gasped, actually admitting Belos was capable of being looked at critically by the loyal golden guard. No less. 

“I will not the next Belos, I am not the person he was.” Hunter spat almost venomously. “To make up for the the many things that have been done wrong, for my first act as emperor.”

He paused obviously nervous about what he was going to say, that only made willow more nervous. She nervously bit more into her lip.

“I will be cancelling the day of the unity.” Hunter the Emperor announced, in front of the entirety of the boiling isles, on live broadcast. 

A cry goes out through the crowd, louder than before and with no end in sight. Reporters and even coven officials attempted to swarm the young emperor with questions and protests.

“The day of unity has been the most anticipated event for so long, why are you cancelling it”

“Will it rescheduled?, what was the actual purpose behind it originally?”

“Why were you missing for almost a week before the emperor died?”

“How will you becoming the Emperor, affect the hierarchy of the Emperor’s coven hierarchy, will someone else be made the golden guard?”

Willow could only imagine how overwhelmed Hunter would be, among the clambering crowd reporters, in their news person garb, there was a two horned journo holding up a microphone, a quadrupedal slobbering newshound reporting for beast coven gazette, Willow caught a glimpse of Gus’ dad Perry porter, he seemed quite  less eager to throw out every question and then some unlike the others. She could imagine how weird it would be to see someone go from sleeping on your couch to the highest position of unquestionable authority in less than half a day. 

“ Emperor, sir, The covenheads haven’t made an appearance lately, and all official coven head activities have been put on freeze, do they have anything to do with the emperor’s untimely disappearance?”

That seemed to be question Hunter was actually comfortable answering.

“Yes! uh, good question. We are still investigating very thoroughly what happened,but we do have some information. The majority of the covenheads were the last to see Belos, and all in the same room as his untimely demise. There may have been some fighting, we have no idea if it was a misunderstanding or just tempers boilings over, or on purpose.There is speculation that there was a group plotting, but there is no evidence,” Hunter says firmly, almost too firmly. “That confirms, that, to be safe though, they will be transported to completely secret ultra secure holding facility, where no one should be able to reach them. Until a consensus is reached of course."

There were murmurs as the crowd received, too many were still upset over the cancelling of the day of unity, but new information was still being given out now, and there would time to dramatically obsess over the unity day thing on penstagram later. 

“If the covenheads will be detained for a while, how the sigil marking keep going.”  The questions kept rolling. 

Hunter still at that for a moment, but made the move to answer the question. 

“About that, sigil marking will be completely shut down for… now.”

Was he going say, forever, willow pondered. 

“It was, recently brought to my attention that sigils have a problem and pose a danger to any witch marked with one."

There was a collective, how many plot twists was Hunter going to drop? 

“What kind of danger?”

“Why hasn’t this ever been addressed before?”

“All of this information is coming out of the blue, has the validity been confirmed, or has the emperor's coven been holding out on the citizens of the boiling isles this whole time?”

Hunter answered none of those questions , but did continue on with the controversial statements. “Well, the danger is death,basically.An extremely painful and gruesome one.” Hunter tried to say appeasingly, though with a statement like that there wasn’t much you could do. 

Another collective gasp.

“You know at this point, I’m not even surprised." A coven scout said, A random person among the crowd snorted, standing next to a hysterical mother being comforted by her teenage daughter. This time it wasn’t just the reporters making the questions. The emperor's coven was too shook by everything to do proper crowd control the mob started to edge there way in too. 

“HOw can  YOu expect us to beli-” 

“ know it’s a lot, but-” Hunter started. 

“How DO we KnoW  YOU didN’t have AnYtHIng to do his-”

“I guess I-” Hunter tried.

“How dare you!” Cried a sobbing, half unmasked coven scout. “Belos has never doing anything wrong, ever!” He burst into tears. 

Hunter chose wisely not to respond to that one. 

“How are we supposed to keep the wild witches in check then? We’re just going to let the filthy wild magic pollute everything.”

Hunter is quick to defend wild magic, This time. 

“Actually, wild magic has been severely misrepresented in comparison to what we consider regular magic. Actually there's quite a few unique utilizations I've seen in modern day that I think would really be helpful and maybe even popular. In fact in the savages ages, I read in Bones to earth a study on wild magic where they used quite an ingenious combination of precision and ..." Hunter trailed off realizing he was nerding out a the wrong time.

Willow felt bad, he always seemed so adorably passionate in the wrong situations. You’ll get your chance one day, Hunter. 

More and questions bombarded him, people within the crowd were starting to argue with each other as well. Many emperor’s coven members even joined the mob rushing toward. 

“Well I guess, that’s all the time we have for now. If you have further questions, please calmly ponder them for a few days. As the emperor’s coven should  be rearranging it’s it’s power structure for the next week or so. And also Byeeeeeeee!” He quickly ducked out of the room disappearing inside the castle from the public eye, the camera shook and rattled, it faced the huge torrents of the crowd a moment before going black. The live stream ended. Willow let a breath, that was an experience and she hadn't even been there. 

Hunter, seemed okay, well not okay, but he seemed in a better than he had then last times Willow and Gus had knew him. He was leading the emperor’s coven for titan’s sake. At least she knew they weren’t trying to do anything to him. There’s no way anyone in the emperor’s coven would’ve ever let him go through with that if they had known what he was going to say. Though what happened between the first time she had met him at Hexside and most recently with Adrian Graye that made him change his mind on everything. 

She shook her head, whatever was up with Hunter, she needed to discuss it with him. She maximized viney’s pensta window. 

“Willow?” Viney asked apprehensively “Did you see all that?” 

“I did, I can’t believe how…” She made a wild gesture of great surprise. “all that was.” 

“What do make of it?” Viney said. 

Willow summoned clover to her, holding her out firmly she adapted a firm stance. 

“I don’t want to make anything of it until I can talk to hunter face to face. Viney?”

The healing and beast track girl smiled. She had a feeling they were both on the same track. (not literally but in thought).

“Yes captain.”  Viney said. 

“Get a hold of Skara, I’m going to fetch Gus.” 

She flawlessly changed into her battle outfit with a single circle drawn. She put her hair into pigtails. Setting her sights on the castle. 

“We’re going to have an early Emerald Entrails reunion.” Willow said. 

Hunter POV

He quickly slammed the door shut, shutting out all the people and noise. Hunter took off his mask, gasping for breath, a sheen of sweat glowing on his forehead. 

“Well, I think that went well.” He said, a tad hoarse. 

Flapjack tweeted a unconvincing affirmation from underneath Hunter’s cloak, he took him out, letting him fly around but promptly collapsed himself.

 “Haha nope, that was terrible I think it’s time to leave forever now that it’s over with and- 

The door burst open, leaving Hunter immediately on the defensive, luckily it was just Eda. HUh, it was kind of weird that his life was at this point that this was a comforting presence. But peace was a lie, and comfort a trap to lure you into a false security because Eda’s expression seemed indicate danger was approaching. 

She grabbed his wrist, pulling him into the off room, before Hunter could blink. 

“Wha-”

He was interrupted as Eda clumsily braced a huge statue against the door with a huge clash. 

“Whew, anything heavier in here?” She gasped, wiping a bead of sweat from her forehead. 

“Um, no?” Hunter replied dumbly. 

“Oh, well I’m sure this will be fine.” Eda said nervously. 

“Fine?” Hunter questioned. 

The door jumped, in answer.

“Well, I can guess, they didn’t take it well?” Hunter said.

“When you said you were going to change things, I thought you were going ease them into things.” The door jumped again, people’s outrage could be heard from the outside. Eda ran to brace it. 

“I was just so caught up, in changing what Belos did, I forgot-” Hunter started. 

A angry yell could be heard from just outside the door. Hunter rushed to help Eda block the door. 

“That it’s hard to change, to find out everything you thought was important didn’t mean anything.” He finished. 

Hunter frowned looking down, but Eda smiled sympathetically. This time the whole wall jolted. Eda and Hunter fell to the ground, the noise had more than doubled and the statue wouldn’t hold for long, but the Owl Lady still found it her to comfort him in his wretched state. She put her hand on his shoulder. 

“Whatever happens I got your back, kid, just make sure Luz and king are fine.” 

“What, no we are both getting out of this, no soldier in my squadron- I mean no one gets left behind,"

As if they were waiting for that, everyone burst in a wild disarray  and shouting. They crowded in, swarming in leaving no room for escape.

“Emperor, you can’t possibly mean-”

“You weren’t serious-”

“HOw could you-”

“Wait just a-" 

“WEll, I think-”

Hunter started to get more and more panic as the tensions grew higher and higher. 

“Okay, Okay, just hold on a moment,” And everyone did, as a familiar, yet new face popped up among the miscellaneous guards and scouts, generals and laundry workers of the emperor’s coven. 

“I know this was a lot today, but our emperor has a plan, you know he would never say something like this out of blue for no reason. Right?” Lilith said, looking at Hunter, for confirmation. 

He made a strangled noise of confirmation,and the crowd quieted a little. 

“In fact you should all take a break, just take time to process everything, you all have been working very hard, and the Emperor has as well. I’m sure things will make sense if you do what you always, blindly trust everything the emperor says, and suppress any feelings of wrongness, no matter the cost, until it’s too late.” Her voice went slightly manic at the end, and Hunter wondered is she was using oracle magic to,or unknowingly projecting and just happened to have the same experience. Whatever the case, he had been silent for too long, so he should probably say something. 

“Lillith is correct, this has been a trying experience for everyone, So you can all take a moment to chill, in fact I just recently learned  this, but most jobs have multiple days off not just a year, but in a month,” He waved his hands excitedly. “Isn’t that crazy?” Though quickly regained his professional composure. “So anyways, this is now the second official vacation day. 

Awkward cough "You're dismissed." Hunter finished up saying. 

And that was that. Though it wasn't all at first they trickled out like a small waterfall until it was just Lillith, Eda, hunter, and a Flapjack in the rafters. Lillith as well, briefly mentioned something about special observations and more research before quickly heading to the library. All alone now, Eda rocked on her heels while Hunter fidgeted with gloves, not for long though.He quickly made an excuse about paperwork and proper forms before leaving. Eda should probably do something as well. , but he just didn't know how to ask her or what, This wasn't just a nameless coven scout whose name and skill he had memorized and knew exactly what mission to send them on. This was the owl lady. He didn’t know what rules their relationship, what was permissible to ask, and what was crossing the line and just asking for the owl beast. 

Though he had never had a proper glimpse of it, it reminded too much of his uncle’s curse. And barring the generally better personality and surprising diplomacy skills (in a sense) he treated their relationship to base it off of. He could address that later he continued forward down the halls leading this way and that. 

So caught up in contemplating the slightly complicated and twisted nature of everything single relationship he had in his entire life barring a few recent additions he didn’t a strangler ivy vine sneak up behind him. Before he could come to his sense the thing lunged at him, twisting around his neck. He struggled to detangle it, the lack of oxygen made him woozy. Flapjack immediately jumped to the rescue and between the two of them the vine was made into crushed pulp. More of them came out of the corners, the windows creeping in but now they stood no chance. He teleported, easily avoiding them trapping them, disintegrating. Suddenly another figure approached. 

Belos. 

In that instant. Everything froze. All thoughts of empires that actually belonged to him and weren’t reluctantly giving on conditions of sweat and blood and tears, disappeared. Somewhere in the back of his mind this wasn’t the same situation that it had always been, when he did something. But the thoughts were screaming out at him. To apologize for whatever he didn’t understand that he had done wrong,beg for forgiveness to the person who saw him as nothing more than a disposable toy. 

The figure approached stepping closer, Hunter stepped back. His terror was so familiar and thorough he didn’t notice more vines creeping around his limbs or Flapjacks, desperate chirping and pecking. 

He had to do something. Fight him, run, away, curl up and die. Close his eyes. Plead for forgiveness. Yell for assistance. But all his instincts were jumbled up inside, fighting to be heard. Still he approached, the masked tyrant growing closer and closer. 

Finally flapjack had enough. With a furious chirp he knocked hunter out of the way, breaking the vines. And charged straight for the former emperor. That was enough to snap Hunter out of it. And he leaped to desperate action. 

“Flapkjack no!”

The Menacing figure vanished the moment he touched it, leaving nothing but empty space, but his senses on the high alert he noticed their were more after him. So that’s what this was, a trap, of course Belos wasn’t back to take him back, murder him, replace him. 

With emotional precision he survived on for over a decade he placed that a box of things to think about later/never and went to work going after the people after him that were more than he thought they were. 

They were fast. He chased them through the halls barely managing to catch a glimpse of their cape as it trailed behind. Faster, and further he pushed himself. They strewn down large obstacles but he vaulted over them easily, and then just as he was barely inches away, hands poised to catch the assailants his feet fell short.

Hunter looked down at the ground a leafy vine that definitely hadn’t been there before it tripped him. He looked up and scrambled to his feet but it was too late. They disappeared from view. 

Flapjack who had been unusually passive made a happy chirp. There was nothing for a moment confusing Hunter. But then a curious chameleon palisman appeared in view. And his witch as well. 

“Gus?” Hunter exclaimed.

More witches came around the corner with Skara leading them, looking pleased at a complicated drawing of what seemed to be a certain route of the castle. Behind her was Puddles and Viney giving a him a good scratch as a job well done. 

Hunter stood shock still. What was happening? they definitely weren’t another rival group trying to take him out. He knew these people. 

They were-

“Good work, emerald entrails!” A bright cheery rang out. Hunter turned around, a light blush growing on his pale cheeks.

 “Captain.” He breathed. His cheeks felt warm for some reason. Was this a grimwalker thing, an after affect from the adrenaline, or somehow a normal thing. The results came back inconclusive as he moved to more questions. 

“I-” He paused as Willow took her place beside his team. “What are you– all, doing here?”

Gus raised his eyebrow. Willow looked annoyed. Skara shook her head disapprovingly beside her. 

“Well, you kinda disappeared in the middle of the night without saying anything! After a run-in with the emperor’s coven no less. How did you think we were going to react?!?” Willow exclaimed, everyone else nodded with her. Clearly the situation had also been explained to them. 

“Acknowledge the disappointment and move on with your life.” Hunter tried meekly. 

“No!” All of them shouted, including the palisman somehow. 

In a softer tone, Gus went up to him. 

“Hunter you’re our friend. And I know you don’t have much experience with sincere friendship, but we got your back."

“Through covenheads, and jerkface emperor’s.” Viney said, while restraining puddles from mauling the traitors they had restrained. 

“Even assassination attempts.” Added Skara, at some part of the conversation She had left left and now returned with some Scouts who were not really taking the day off well, and we're desperate enough to follow a random hexside student who promised honor and praise from the Emperor.

 “We're with you, Caleb.”  Willow said firmly determination blazing in her eyes.

Hunter lowered his eyes, unable to stand the intensity, a strange redness rows his cheeks again.

He couldn't believe he had discounted the emerald entrails again?! He knew how capable they were. He…  mostly knew they considered a friend for some reason. But just anything involving the emperor's coven made him feel so helpless and alone.

He shook his head. No! This would not control his life. He would take control of the stupid fear and beat it into submission. He looked up ready to reassess the situation now that The emerald entrails were here to back him up. Speaking of reinforcements, the coven Scouts skara had recruited were eagerly awaiting instruction.

“Right. I thank you for your quick volunteering. Restrain these traitors! We shall decide their fate soon.” He said. 

“Yeah,we definitely will.” Viney added darkly. The rest of the emerald entrails also gave a scary glare as the prisoners were wheeled away.

Hunter could hear the idle chatter of the guards as They neared out of earshot.

“They're on our side this time, right?”

“I hope so,” the others responded. 

Hunter was silently impressed they were able to pick up the emerald entrails' strength so quickly. But most certainly agreed his friends were the best. She turned to them.

“Well, I am deeply pleased that you were able to assist in this slight turn of situational disturbances .”

“Look Hunter, it's fine. I know you try to give off this bad boy vibe.” Viney said. 

“What?” Hunter said. 

Skara continued. “But everyone knows you're a bad but sad boy,”

“Yeah,” Gus picked up. “You look like you could kill us but you're actually a cinnamon roll.”

Hunter looks so confused. “I don't know what that means.”

“Neither do I,” Said Gus cheerfully. Willow took over. 

“All that matters is that will be there to protect you and gladly grind anyone to dust who tries to hurt you.” She said with the calmness of a Cham- Chamoille flower.

Suddenly, Skara started laughing out loud spontaneously. Hunter raised his eyebrow. 

“What's so funny?” He said. 

Skara amusedly looked around at everyone.

“I just had a funny thought that's especially ironic considering how we all first met you Hunter!” She exclaimed.

Hunter crossed his arms, curious but impatient.

“Well feel free to share with the squad.”

Her face was bursting with excitement.

“What if we,” she said, gesturing to everyone. “Join the emperor’s coven!”

Hunters jaw went slack

Skara continued “we can be your Elite Squad, your bodyguards and would be able to hang out on a regular basis without anyone stopping us.”

Viney burst out chortling, Gus just made a funny face while, Willow actually seem to contemplate it. 

Hunter himself Considered it. He liked hanging out with his friend yes, but on the other hand mixing friends and work might be a bad idea. On the other other hand they all were extremely strong enough and would be a good example to the new place the emperor's coven would be.

But the thought persisted, what if after everything spending time him in this place,they disc rover something they couldn't forgive, they wouldn't put up with. Or what if he couldn't keep them safe, and they ended up like him somehow. No matter, he couldn't risk it, no matter how unlikely. 

He shook his head. It was interesting thought, but again no rash action should be taken at this time. 

 "I think it's a good idea to make sure you're respected right here, right now. But you shouldn't commit to anything in this tumultuous time right now. You'll get VIW passes (very important witches), for a lack of better term, and you'll still be able to assist from the outside. I think that should be good enough to start with."

Hunter suddenly remembered about asking permission before committing friends to anything. 

"If that's okay with you course." He rushed to say. 

The emerald entrails smiled back at him encouragingly. Gus gave a thumbs-up and Viney patted him on the back. 

"You're the boss!" She said jokingly. 

Willow also put a hand on his shoulder. The movement was reminiscent of when she stood up for him at hexside after the emperor's coven attacked. It also made him aware of how close they were… And how the rest of the emerald entrails were sneaking away behind him?

He made stern eye contact with Viney who was struggling to get puddles back through the door, but she just gave a cheeky double thumbs up, and Gus mouthed good luck? What did that mean? The door closed with the bang, as they scurried out and Willow turned around surprised.

"They left in a hurry." Willow noted tilting her head.

"Yeah wonder why." Hunter said, slightly irritated. Though also wondering as well. 

"Well I guess it's just us alone then." Willow said. 

There was an awkward shuffling of just the two of them in the room. Though hunter knew better and that Flapjack was still around here somewhere. 

"Hunter," Willow said suddenly. "How are you? I get you don't want to make a big deal in front of everyone. But how are you holding up with everything?"

Hunter closed his eyes, he hesitated, but in the end went ahead with it.

"Belos’ tried to kill me. "   

Willow POV

 "Oh, Caleb, I'm- " She started. 

"But then someone killed him.Killed Belos. The man who raised me and hurt me. Whose existence defined my entire worldview. He's dead. And now everyone wants me to replace him. Cuz I'm the golden Guard, nothing but-but-but his pet! His good little toy solider. "

Hunter's eyes opened. They were angry and fierce, but she could see tiny pinpricks of tears.

 "Is that all people see me as.Is that all I am? I refuse to accept that, or at least try so I cancel the day of unity, even if I already know that probably wasn't the best to do so soon. I was just so caught up and undoing all of my years of  wasted devotion to Belos. Now it probably doesn't even mean anything. Now people are trying to kill me, an argue with me, look down on me and use me. All I can think is, Oh Titan! at least things are back to normal!" He said. 

He made a noise of frustration.

"Even my coping mechanisms probably need coping mechanisms."

Willow blinked in surprise. The anger and sadness and mess of feelings weren't surprising. Hunter had been through some trying times these past few days. And that wasn't even counting the tragedy that had been his past, if the disturbing tidbits he sometimes dropped about what he thought was normal or anything to go by.

“I tried so hard, all my life For Belos. For the titan. For the emperor’s coven, for even the gosh-darned barest crumb of approval from Darius.”

His eyes were wild and desperate a shining blood red in the flickering light of the throne room. They dulled as he lowered his head. 

“I’m really tired Willow.” The eyebags sagged in agreement.  “I-I’m just really tired.”

For a moment she gathered her wits desperately searching for something she could say that would make everything better. She wished this was like her dream this morning and she could woosh away all his troubles with a magic spell. 

She walked up to the space right next to him. He wasn’t sitting on the emperor’s throne even it was clearly open. He sat at the foot of it instead his head next his knees.

Quietly Willow sat next to him.

“Hunter, you should really sleep in more.”

Hunter’s head poked up too fast and he hit his head the bottom of the armrest wincing. She continued on. "You never slept in a day in your life when you were the Golden Guard, and I’m guessing and becoming the emperor certainly hasn’t done any wonders for your sleep schedule.”

Hunter looked at Willow with utter confusion at the seemingly random change of topics. 

“You should worry less about your grammar in the group chat. We don’t care about how slow you type. I know things are overwhelming right now but you don’t have to do it perfectly. No one expects you to pull off everything flawlessly.”

Hunter muttered something under his breath about Belos probably. Willow winced.

“Let me rephrase, no one should expect you to pull off everything perfectly. You are doing an amazing job and if something happens not optimal as possible, well then people will just learn how to deal with it. Okay? It's okay to not be okay."

Ignoring the anxious flutter of burgeoning feelings he probably didn’t reciprocate. She grabbed his hand. 

“You deserve good things. You deserve much more than absolute minimum acknowledgement everyone has always given you your enitre. You have your life. You have your friends. Technically Darius, Eber, and Raine, probably, I guess. You have Eda on your payroll, not sure how that happened. But the point is we can be here for you, Help mop up the emperor's coven, keep you protected from assassination attempts, teach you how to attach files on pentagram.”

“You can do that?” Hunter asked. 

“The rest of the boiling isles will be fine now that the day of unity is canceled, give them time to adjust. Take time for you. I won't tell you what to do, that choice belongs to you, but I hope you do something that makes you happy.” Secretly she hoped, she would someone be one of those things that made him happy, but that would have weird to say. 

 Flapjack chose that moment to fly down from a local Nook he was peeking in on and happily landed on Hunter shoulder. He tweeted sweetly nuzzling Hunter's cheek.

“You really think so?” Hunter said aloud in response to something that the wooden Cardinal had said.

Emmeline also joined in after Willow held her hand up, summoning her, she buzzed happily in circles around the both of them. Saying something to Hunter as well. 

“Well if you're all teaming up against me, I guess I have to.” He said but in a tone of voice that made it clear he was joking.

Willow laughed along with him. Their conversation turned to lighter topics talking about whatever as they walked back to find where the rest of their friends had gone.  Flyer derby, different types of wild and more magic. They even shared complicated feelings they had, about someone who had not been the nicest, that had changed their mind. It felt good to have someone to talk to, and listen to. Whatever random subject was brought up it didn't matter. For once it was just the two of them and their palisman. Two good “friends” catching up.

Chapter Text

Lilith POV 

What an interesting point in my life I was at currently. Lillith clawthorne thought to herself. For so long all I wanted was to be highly esteemed by the emperor and his coven, good terms with and work alongside a curse free Eda. And now just when I went to let go of my dream I have all three. 

 Lilith pondered the peculiarity of the circumstances in which she had gotten her fondest wishes in the most unusual situation in which after deciding everything she wanted wasn't worth it only then had she attained it. Maybe that meant something but she wouldn't think about it any further today. She went back over to the documents in her hand. 

Technically she didn't work for the emperor's coven anymore, but no one seemed to remember that including the emperor.

Who was a teenager as well. 

 Lilith groaned, the spelling was all wrong on this paper and she shouldn't be here doing this anyways

She stood up gathering the documents, this time should be the one to shovel the work on her sister. She even had an actual legal reason to give them to her it was her job. Probably. She wasn't sure what Eda's job actually was. She just did whatever like always.

At Least that hasn't changed. Everything else was in turmoil to say the least. It had been a few weeks since the settle decovenization had taken place. There were were still around but much less popular and controversial than before. Witches both loved and hated that fact. And while some had admitted to being uncomfortable with Committing all their magic to a single coven so early before they knew what they really wanted to do with their life. Tensions had been rising with a pro-sigil group. Violent Protests unfortunately.

 Sadly the emperor’s coven was in no shape to to deal with it. But while Lillith quite admired and assisted with the new power structure and hierarchy. She almost missed the days where the emperor could just snap his fingers and quell any sign of protest.

 She pushed up her glasses. Rubbing at her eyes with one hand. She had definitely been here too long. The other started gathering up papers, and she pushing she made the move to the get out of here and back to her home.  But after going a few more steps down the hallway. She saw a tiny light emanating from a room down a little ways, apparently someone else was still staying later than her. 

She ducked in the room curious, someone else was hard at work with research and paperwork with documents surrounding him and books piled. It was none other than the new emperor himself. 

Hunter the golden Guard, 

The pale boy hadn’t even noticed her so engrossed with his work. Hunter, the former golden guard, current emperor. 

What complicated mess and emotions that brought up. Back in her covenhead days he was a petty annoying rival who did nothing but bother her. After she left despite knowing how toxic that place was. It stung when he so easily replaced her. But any personal feelings were pushed aside, to cope with the fact that now he was a serious threat. A young child that grew up in a place that that but still a threat. 

Later Luz had had some sort of adventure with him, and seemed convinced he had some sort of redeeming qualities, but a second personal meeting at amity, eda and king's hand had solidified that it wasn't enough. While some of the things they reported after that encounter were worrying for the boy, and she had empathy for the terrible methods of the emperor's she knew personally he must have endured. He was obviously fine. He was a golden guard. Through and through. Like all those who came before him right? Lillith looked at the tired, scared child in front of her. She was  so caught up in her own troubles that she neglected to consider that the similar nightmares might extend to another undeserving candidate around her as well.

 But like she said she still had her own troubles there's nothing she could have done. 

Or is that what was easier to believe. She believed being in a coven was an honor for the best and brightest. When it was just filled with witches dumb enough to buy the lie really desperate to not lose sight of the dream of being important, to not be replaced, to earn the bare semblance of praise and respect in return.

Suddenly Hunter jolted out of a seat. Having only now have noticed her presence. 

“Li-uh- Miss Clawthorne, how long have you been standing there. What are you doing here?”

“Long enough.” Lilith replied acutely.” I was just turning in for the night, but what are you still doing up?”

Hunter twisted the quill between his gloved fingers.

“I was just going to stay up a few more hours to finish looking over the documents, so I can go to sleep early and sleep the mandatory amount tomorrow.”

He responded, she waited a few seconds before realizing he actually believed what he was saying. She blinked a few times, trying to figure out what to say to that. 

 “I don't quite think that's how it works. “ Was all Lilith could say.

She took a closer look at the papers scattered around. 

Setting her stuff down at the other side of the table, one of the few clear spaces on the table, she went to picking up one of Hunter's papers. Curious of the content. 

“Fairy-dew free soft drink for a scout with a mystical moisture allergy. Permission to change shifts. Chore chart for Who's in charge of cleaning the new brief room?” She looked incredulously at the emperor. He looks back at her as well, his face slightly blushing, a bit sheepish.

“These aren't important why are you doing them?” Lillith asked him. 

 Hunter dramatically leapt to defend them. "Of course they're important Carl has to travel all the way to spine Central if he wants something to eat after a shift.” Lillith pinched her nose. Maybe she should rephrase.

“ I mean why are you spending so much time and all of these when nearly every single one could be signed off by so many other people. (but not me because I still don't work here anymore) in fact-” 

She gathered a good portion of the papers up in one hand, and reached for another one with her other much to Hunters protest.” I'll get Edalyn to take care of these."

“ wait-” He said tugging back one of the papers Liliith struggled to hold on without ripping the paper.

“I can't do that, everyone will see me is lazy or weak. It's- it's not allowed.”

“ Allowed?” Lilltih said, her eyebrow raised at the emperor himself.

Hunter seemed to realize what he said and blushed in embarrassment letting go of the paper.

Lilith truly looked this time, seeing the broken toy soldier in front of her. Desperate for any form of respect even as the supreme authority figure currently. She wondered how she could have ever thought he was as bad as Belos, and deeper down she also wondered if there really was nothing she could have said she could have done all those years she knew him.

“Hunter,” She started unsure of how to finish the sentence. 

I'm sorry for everything I did and didn't do. Did you also feel so alone or so miserable despite everyone telling you you should be grateful? What did Belos do or say to you that made you they way you are now? What was the thing that changed your mind?

Do you hate me? 

“I can help with the paperwork.” She ended up saying. She pulled up a knobbly old chair. She adjusted it slightly to make herself more comfortable. 

“I'm very experienced when it comes to paperwork, practically an expert. " She added. 

Setting the papers down and already separating a few she got straight to work, organizing everything quite efficiently. "We'll start by sorting through the papers, the important ones will go in a pile over there, anything very minor or we'll go over there anything with a deadline will go over there anything we're not sure of will go right here.”

 She adjusted her glasses. Hunter stood still for a moment as if processing everything but then jumped to work in a effort to match her pace.

“Oh. okay! Um this seems semi-important, over here, right?”

Lilith nodded and that was how it went. Both ex-coven-heads, one also a former Golden Guard. Needless to say between Lilith’s workaholic coping mechanisms and Hunters recovering insomnia they did not part ways and go to bed for quite a few hours. But unhealthy work-sleep schedule aside, It was actually a nice experience. They got through the paperwork, setting some aside for later. And after a bit of light conversation realized how much in common they had. This included a certain passion for specific genres of researching and history like Deadwardian Banisters or the floral application with wild magic in the Savages ages. Topics like Belos or anything they had blindly done in the past for the Titan were vaguely skirted around. Nevertheless the sentiment was still felt and there was an unspoken understanding between them.

 Eventually at three in the morning Eda came by to call them both nerds and drag Lilltih off, to go to sleep threatening to do the same to Hunter if he wasn't in bed by the time she came back. Lilltih couldn't tell how intimidated he was by the threat as she was dragged away. But Eda did tell her that Hunter was still there when she came back, he’d fallen asleep his resting head creasing a half open page under the section for deadwardian banisters. All in all, it was quite a productive day, Lilltih thought before closing her eyes, and drifting off to sleep. 

The windows were blocked, the outer doors were locked and everything was hexed temporarily for good measure. But Darius could tell Hunter was still convinced some one would pop out and accuse of treason(which was technically very true to some degree, despite him being in charge) and attack him and everyone else he was hiding, including the ex-covenhead Darius himself, who sat unimpressed, quite comfortable in the Emperor's castle for someone who was accused of treason along with Raine who was directly in this room (yet) but close by in the castle somewhere and Eber who was in this room, but on the ceiling for undisclosed reasons. 

“Now that you’ve checked the boundary spell for the 19th time, are you finally ready to move on. Little Prince?” Darius, ex-coven head of the abomination coven, technically a criminal assumed to be in prison. Not that being a criminal was a big deal, every in the room had committed multiple crimes against the laws of emperor Belos, including the current emperor Hunter, though his were mostly gaining the capability of independent thought and existing.

“Give the kid, a break, Darius, I’d like to see you become emperor at 16, also you can’t call him little prince anymore, it doesn’t work anymore. You need something more universal, like blondie!”

“I’d rather wear a dirty sock, than become emperor, also what if he dyes his hair, then your nickname wouldn’t work-” Darius argued back, before he was interrupted. 

“You planning to dye your hair, Caleb? Need any ideas or help?” A bright voice cut in, Hunter turned around, his dismal mood lifted. 

“Captain- I mean Willow, what are you doing here?” 

“You wanted me to check to see if Amity knew anything about Luz just in case, and it turned out she was on house arrest. Me and a few of the emerald entrails busted her out. Though I think her mom could benefit from a little “emperor intervention.” She replied knowingly, an exaggerated wink at the end. Hunter paused for a minute, calling upon all his knowledge of teen social customs to discern the meaning. 

Eda awkwardly coughed, “She thinks you should lock Amity's mom up or something so she’ll be leave Amity alone.”  Eda tried to nudge Hunter towards under her breath.

“Ah, yes, that was about what I was thinking of, I’ll be sure you get that done, soon.” Hunter agreed, he had met Odalia Blight, and she did seem... somewhat suspicious. Though that's what the human always said about Belos, and he never realized that. What did he know? But either way it was probably fine if both Willow and the Owl Lady personally recommended it. 

Another arrival was announced by polite knocking on the door. Willow turned around to answer it since she was the closest. The door cracked open to reveal Raine!

“Oh, um this is surprising, who are you," They said, addressing Willow.  "Is Eda here?” 

“I’m Willow, I’m a friend of Hunter. And we’re actually all here including Eda.” Willow said. 

Raine stepped into the room. They smiled an awkward but quiet at Eda who smiled back before they both quickly looked away under the close attention of everyone else is the room watching. Darius smirked, they weren't fooling anybody. 

“Wait if we’re all here, where’s Eber, and the rest of CATTs?” Raine asked. In the background Darius let out a groan of annoyance at use of the ridiculous acronym. Eda snickered affectionately at it though. 

“Ah, yes, the rest Members of the resistance which is the Covens Against the Throne, also known as the CATTs, m-row.” Hunter said doing the signature cat claw, the whole title said in a dead serious voice. Eda had hold back a snicker again. “Are all outside currently, monitoring some suspicious activity with a pro-sigil riots on the rise.”

Raine laughed, even though it was a slightly weird thing to laugh at. 

“I’m sorry, it’s just a few weeks ago, that “suspicious activity” would’ve been us.” They said. 

This is a completely different circumstance, actually legit suspicious activity. Though they did have a a but of a point.  Darius didn't say aloud. Hunter was thinking of how he had almost caught them doing "suspicious" activity less than a month ago, which had led to his life being flipped upside down, and everything changed. But he also said nothing. There was no need and Eda and Raine were moving on to their intent behind the meeting and "surprise" arrival. Honestly Darius was surprised Eda didn't track down Raine the moment Hunter had secretly retraced both his, raine's and Eberwolf's prison transportation back to the castle when it was uninhabited. 

“That’s true. Uh, can I talk to for a second, Rainestorm?” Eda asked.

“I mean I was wanting to talk to you about a few things as well. Though I still haven’t seen Eber-”

Then out of nowhere with the announcement of his name Eberwolf came crashing down from the ceiling right on Raine’s head, everyone laughed at that, especially when he wouldn’t let go. 

"You have no idea how long he was waiting to do that." Darius said. 

Raine, rolled their eyes, “Fine. Do you mind if he stays Eda?”

Eda waved it off, “it’s fine, it’ll be fine. As long as Eberwolf’s comfortable.” She joked. 

“We're all friends here, there's nothing a bit a little and rough housing teasing we can't move past. It's not like there's anything bad that happened in the past. " Darius tried to joke. 

Though for Hunter it felt a little more personal, like all the "teasing" were nothing more than silly misunderstandings, unbeknownst to the side, Willow was also reflecting on past misgivings at the hands of current friends. 

Darius immediately grimaced right after he said, regretting his words, but too late to take them back. He forced the sour expression to move on. Hunter was less able to move on, remembering the neglect and empty space of praise and any sort of positive attention that had shaped his life. He turned away to hide his uncomfortablness, Willow noticed, and she decided if no one else was going to bring it up, she would. 

“A-hem, Eda did you still want to ask hunter about that thing.” 

Eda looked confused, and a little perturbed, but Willow sent her, her best please-go-with-this pleading face she had learned from Luz that usually worked for her. Hunter also looked confused, but perked up for the affirmation. 

“What thin- Oh I mean yes, Hunter do you mind if I discuss something real quick with you?”

Hunter trotted over without another thought. Willow listened just long enough to hear the start of their conversation, “How’s your sleep schedule…” before turning to address Darius.

Darius raised his eyebrow at the confident witch before him.

“Was there something you wanted to discuss, Miss Parks.”

She met his gaze with determination. “They are a few things I want to confirm and ask a few questions, about you and Hunter.” 

“Like what, now that we’re on the same side, everything’s fine. “ A brief flicker of uncertainty crossed his face, it was only an instant before his stony countenance reformed, Willow definitely took notice, but she would address it later. 

“Look, I know Hunter has been living, surviving a situation I don’t even want to imagine, he’s been failed by so many grown-ups he trusted, maybe all of them. I need to make sure you’re not one of them anymore."

“I-” His eyes shifted to the side, just slightly a sign he was uncomfortable with this topic. “I don’t see how this is relevant, with Belos gone and Hunter in charge the only problem we have deal with is the pro-s-”

“Hunter was in charge in some form of leadership since he was a literal child soldier, that didn’t stop him being hurt by everyone around him, by Belos, physically and emotionally. I need to make sure you know things have changed.”

“I.. didn’t know, it never really came up.” Darius tried, but the excuse sounded hollow the second it came out. 

“Did you really never notice. Really,? Or was it just easier to look away, laugh along with them. Because that’s the just the way it is, nothing you can do about it.”

The statement lefts it’s impact. Darius remembered all the bruises and limps The Golden Guard would exhibit after a private meeting with Belos. All the covenheads even some Generals talking down to him and laughing at him either behind his back or straight to his face. Willow recalled something personal as well. Years of bullying enabled by one of her ex-closest friend. Facing the ire of the queen athlete and her posse while others did nothing to stop her, just going along with it. Until she found a friend, someone else suffering in silence, multiple friends actually. One of them Hunter who she would not let him go through this same thing without doing something.

“I never hurt him," Darius tried.  "Not like-”  

“You never hurt him? you never called him worthless, half-a-witch, beat down his confidence and self-esteem until he felt like he anything you asked just to win the bare minimum witch decency?”

Darius was silent, the worst part nothing she said was something he didn’t already know. In fact he probably knew more about the vague horrors of Hunter’s upbringing than her. But he still did nothing, actually he did something. He made it worse. He was hurt, and grieving, and he took out on a child. He claimed to be against the tyrant, Belos. But in that deed he was just as bad. 

Willow seemed almost done, this rant to run personal for her as well. 

“You know the reason Hunter never doubted Belos until he had no other choice. It’s because Belos used to be right when he said no one look twice at him, or do anything to help him. When I was younger my best friend suddenly turned on me one day and bullied me. She joined a group of my tormentors and some days she would do nothing just stand by and watch as they laughed at my failures. And some days it was like she took personal delight in my suffering. But then Luz showed up.”

Willow sighed. 

"I know Amity only… bullied me because of her parent, and she was a victim in this as well. But she still never said sorry, only that she kind of just wants to go back to way they were. But they can’t, I’m a different person, she is too. But she’s dating Luz, sometimes it’s seems their always together, and it’d be awkward to still be angry at her. I mean I’m… not… that much. But I feel obligated.. To forgive her."

Willow seemed feel a tad self conscious after the backstory spill, turning away for a little bit but quickly made her way back to the main point. 

“I just want to make sure things have changed between you two, that he won’t be treated like he was when he was Golden Guard, because even if Hunter tolerates it. We won’t.” Willow ended, this time she would have a say in how this story went, no waiting for people to change their minds on their own or someone to come along to fix things. She wasn't alone and neither was Hunter. 

There was a moment of silence, reflection and regret as Darius finally worked up the courage to say something in response to all this. 

“I didn’t want to admit it, but what everything happened back under Belos, my treatment of Hunter." His face shifted, portraying the genuine regret.

 I’m ashamed of what happened. What I did was inexcusable. And I want to make sure Hunter never feels like that ever again. I just want him to be safe. And happy, free of burden.”

“And he knows that too, right?” Willow asked.

Before Darius could answer a roar shook the castle. Everyone swayed on their feet, Darius turning into a more solid abomination goo, Willow summoned vines to stabilize Raine, Hunter, and herself. Eda transformed into harpy mode, already soaring towards to windows to see the commotion. Her claw met the hex, tracing a semicircle to undo the sealing hex. The door flew open, a familiar, member of the catts peeled in, desperate and out of breath. 

“Don’t open anything!!!!” Kayta yelled. 

But it was too late. 

Hunter POV 

The noise was immense even from as high up as they were. The crowd made up well over the height difference of two stories in volume and immensity. Hunter knew they were a bunch a witches in the boiling isles currently who… very unpolitely disagreed him with him tearing down Belos Bias' about magic and plan for genocide aka the coven system, (Not that he had officially announced the second part,it was a more subtle thing, but people definitely had noticed). But there had never been such an organized, huge, and violent gathering. People were lobbing potion bombs as high as they could, some of them hitting. One came straight on. 

“Get down!” Shouted Eda. With her harpy wings she batted the potion away, it exploded feet away from them. 

“We need to get out of here!” Raine announced they had recovered, and was trying to direct everyone away from the crowd. Back into the caste, there would be some sort of safe room there, or one they could manufacture. 

A thunderous roaring and pounding on the stairs, alerted them that that was not a option either.

“Over this way!” Said… Amity?!?!?! Who apparently been outside the door the whole time! Well no time to consider what that meant. They all raced down the side set of stairs, staff and weapons out ,ready for action.

A mob of the pro-sigil group witches followed them into the courtyard, Raine blew them away with a powerful incantation from their violin. A huge barricade of witches set themselves up as they made their way outside, but Eda tossed the group above the crowd easily, with the palisman helping them glide over and safely touch down. The pro-sigils people were all amateurs and easily knocked down, but soon the sheer numbers would overwhelm them. Amber and Derwin joined them from the sides, blasting mob members and everything they were throwing at them. 

“We need reinforcements!” Hunter scrambled to say in between dodging blasts of energy and random debris thrown. 

Willow sent an overhanging branch to pin a mob member in their tracks while simultaneously pulling out her phone, with a squint of his eyes, Hunter could see she was opening the emerald entrails group chat. She furiously typed something in, while Raine and Eda covered her. Amity was holding her own and she seemed to be at work attempting to multitask and also contact someone as well. 

“I think we might need a few more than just the EE!” Hunter said.

“Don’t worry, we’ll be able turn the tide.” 

His phone suddenly dinged. Everyone paused in battle in surprise, (except willow, and flapjack who were in the background taking everyone out still). 

Bard_Queen367 is livestreaming with Hello_Willow

Ding! New Comment Ding! New Comment Ding! New Comment Ding! Multiple group thread. Ding! Ding! Ding! Din-

Hunter mind was racing fast, she was livestreaming this? Why? And people were watching it? Also why? What was she trying to do? His breath was starting to come short, and he could tell Flapjack was slowing down as well. Darius and Amity were completing some impressive combo moves, but Hunter could tell it was one of the last cards they had to play. 

The mob was gaining more and more momentum and outnumbering with everyone they had lost on the chase was regrouping. In the midst of the chaos Hunter's heart seized as he saw a witch who had belonged to the construction coven take out a branding glove. Where on titan had he gotten that. He didn’t even know where they were, Belos was the last-

“Here come the calvary!!!!!” A familiar voice announced coming from past the mobs. 

All at once everyone turned to see, a few muttering “Who’s a "the calvary"?” 

With a few flaps Eda rose above the crowd to meet a speeding young witch riding a chameleon backwards. He was followed with another with a hook in her ear, and fierce griffin as her steed. Steve was also there. And Lilith. And Skara, and a ton of guards in the emperor’s who had actually quite taken well to the change. Willow’s dads were as were a few other parents. And principal Bump. And Tinella Nose. And beyond that they were a who crowd of random witches and others who he didn’t even know. What were they all doing here? Lillith stepped to the front, a fellow bard witch on their side drew a magnify volume spell. 

 “Listen up! I know you don’t want to accept it, but Belos lied to us! The sigils don’t do anything but restrain us! Keep us in line, and divide us against one another. You can keep yours, or choose to be proud of them or whatever, who cares it’s your life. But just let everyone else have the choice about them, let them use their magic how they want to!” Lilith told to the crowd, with stern and righteous firmness. 

All at once the crowd retorted, no one took to being told off very well. And many looked strangely confident in their seeming demise. 

Circling above on Puddles, Viney cracked her neck. 

“Well it’s looks like we’re doing this.” 

And the battle started up once more. Hunter teleported with a zoom past a witch trying to drop an anvil on him. It was great that they had reinforcements, but what was the use if he didn’t make it out. Amity was off to the side trying to get past the mob as well, and seemed disappointed for reason, but there was no time to focus on that. 

Two more came at him and he zoomed away watching them crash into each other. Unfortunately he was too tired to come out of the zoom properly and tripped over a loose stone. Before he could get up another witch with abomination magic nailed him with an abomination covered in spikes. He kicked them away, wiping blood from his face. But unluckly for him The construction coven with the branding glove, he wasn’t quite sure what he could due to the fact that he already had a sigil but he couldn’t wait around to find out. Unfortunately the construction coven pro-sigil witch was able to pin him down with help from a lady from the plant coven her vines twisted tightly around him, too right. His vision started see spots. His whole world spinning. His chest almost cracking. 

Then relief. The constricting plants released. His blurry vision made two witches with green hair, and an abominatron that held the construction witch captive. 

“Dad, you came after all?” Amity asked. 

“Ed and Em convinced me, what’s the use of all my work, if it’s taking me away from what I’m working towards.” Amity's father Alador Blight told her. 

“Lovely reunion, I don’t suppose you can assist us out of this current situation?” Hunter interrupted. Not at all jealous of timely reconciliation and redeeming actions of her parental figure. 

“Right, don’t worry about reinforcements, I brought the current batch that was supposed to be shipped out tomorrow. They should help greatly”

Wait, shipped out to who? Before they were supposed to go to the Emperor, but he had had nothing to do with them currently, unlike Belos. He had cancelled the order. And was pretty sure no one else had purchased a small abomination army last he checked. 

Ed threw a potion to clear a path, and Emira worked a little healing magic to clot up hunter’s head wound. Ughh, time for think about all this later. Right now they had to get to somewhere safe. 

“This way!” Ed announced. Ed and Alador in the abdomintron took the lead, Amity helped to watch their back and Emira stayed a second longer to set up some illusions that send anyone hunting them off track. Hunter turned to follow them, glad for a temporary reprieve from the madness at least to regroup and check status update on everyone. 

“Oh, Hunter. How could you.”

He stopped dead in his tracks. That was a voice he only heard in his nightmares, it couldn’t be real, it had to be an illusion. Like last time. He forced himself to move, flapjack’s tweets spurring him into action. He sent a blast to dissipate the illusion. The blast blew a hole straight through Belos. Hunter gasped, and in his head flapjack did the bird palisman equivalent with a worried tweet. But it turned even worse, and the gregarious sludge he had come to associate with the curse curled around the hole in Belos filling it till he was back to normal. Blond hair with strands of white, black beady eyes, and a green scar stretching across his face. 

Right now this would be the ideal time he would go fetch one of the many reinforcements he had. But he couldn’t move. This was more than an illusion. This was the real thing. Flapjack had switched into bird form when he unknowingly let go of the staff at some point in time and was trying in vain to push Hunter to safety. He tried to tell the well-meaning bird of wild magic, it was no use. Belos was alive, he would never be safe now. 

“I must say, I’m so very disappointed. How could leave me like this, after I never left you. Even after no one else stayed."

Hunter whimpered. His feet shuffling backwards. Slowly. 

Belos walked towards him, noticing a dropped palisman staff on the ground, without a word or hint of hesitation he picked it up, snapping it in half, inhaling the magic. 

“Well, at least that was quite lovely, now be a good boy, and hand over that palisman by you.” He said, obviously meaning Flapjack. 

Flapjack let out a tweet of curses, that was sadly unintelligible to the recipient. Hunter’s hand unconsciously went to protect flapjack like he could block the bird from Belos grasp somehow. 

“No,” Hunter said. “No, no,nno,no,no.”

His breath getting faster and faster, building up more and more. Belos took one step closer and he took off running. Past the Catt’s, into the castle, past the Blight family(excluding Odalia who was in the pro-sigil mob getting beat-up currently), past a concerned Willow and his other friends. His mind went blank with panic, and when he came back into awareness he was in a very familiar room. Nothing was too notable about this except it was where he kept his golden guard things in storage. All his gear and the extras. 

“Hunter, what happened?” Willow had taken notice of his panic and followed him here. And it appeared she wasn’t the only one 

“Kid, did you see something out there.” She slowly held out a hand of assistance. Quite like last time. But just like last time, Hunter could only concentrate on one thing, he couldn’t let Belos hurt anyone because of him and especially not them. 

His grasped a familiar old staff, though not one used for a while. 

“I-I have to go.” Then he teleported away in an instant, in a golden glow. Leaving everyone behind, including a sad wooden cardinal in the middle of a tumultuous uprising of the witches of the boiling isles. 

He teleported a short distance away, a few miles and a then a few more. He lost his ways a few times. But eventually got to his destination. There was an instinctual feeling of wrong, having been taught from birth this place was sacred ground, but he pushed it away. He needed more answers, he needed to know what Belos knew. This was his only option. He pushed the heavy doors open, using a little magic from the Golden Guard staff to close them behind him. He took in the mysterious space. This was it, it had to be. He took a breath. 

“Collector, I know you’re out there!” His voice echoed through the empty caverns. For a moment it seemed he might be mistaken, but an eerie pair of glowing white eyes emerged from the shadows.

"Ah, Poor Little Grimwalker, No master in sight, now wearing the crown, fresh from a fight." His little rhyme seemed to be a source of amusement for him, and it sent peels of creepy laughter echoing around him in the cavern. His star-and moon form circled around him. Eager for the next move. 

This was either a good sign, or the beginning of the end of me. Hunter thought, preparing his next words. 

Luz POV 

The horn of an old boiling sea craft blarred, as it dropped off a human, titan, and owl bird tube thingy at the docks of the boiling isles. The wight of the tube demon and entirely different set of problems and responsibilities on her back. 

She walked forward at an even pace, fishing her out mobile cat-shaped messaging device. 

“Hmm. mom took pensta but we’re safe will contact.”

Luz took a moment to appreciate the unnecessary heart emojis at the end, her awesome girlfriend had added. 

“Ahh she sent so many hearts. Hope she’s doing okay.”

“Is that amity?” King asked, the newly discovered baby titan. “It’s okay if you want to check on her. I can get to the owl house on my own.” 

Luz reflected on the whole experience trying to process everything. Would it even be safe for him, especially now? She grimaced, at the newfound predicament they found themselves in. 

“Hey look.” Hooty interrupted, “While we were gone, Eda got promoted!!!” 

Luz laughed at the funny joke even though she didn't even understand what it meant. But after a moment Luz turned to look. She tore the poster off to take a closer look, her jaw suspended in disbelief. The dock was very empty, not that it was a very busy place but there was only a few witches lounging about. And on the poster it had pictures of Eda and Hunter is the same poses usually reserved for Belos. They was some graffiti as well for some reason. One said “Bring Back B-” but was cut off by another poster of Eda in a pose of just an might, wearing an official uniform that somehow still went well with her usual outfit. Another said something about sigils but she concentrated on the posters. They were less formal and didn’t look to be petitioned by the Emperor's coven, not that Belos would make anything for Eda except a wanted poster. But nonetheless they had the distinct style of emperors coven, which it was reminiscent of. They clearly communicated Hunter was the emperor of the boiling isles, and Eda was helping him. 

Luz clenched the paper tightly. Now was there truly nothing she could rely on. Did this mean was she theorized it meant?

“Luz, is something wrong, aside from the terrible color pairing of scarlet red, and offbrand gold and /or yellow?” Hooty said. 

“Yeah, Luz, is there another problem?’ King asked worriedly, scooting closer to her. 

She let out breath. 

“I believe… somehow… we’ve been transported to an alternate universe. A reverse au, it seems likely.” 

Chapter Text

Hunter eyed the being wearily as he circled around him. He had no flapjack just in case something dangerous happened- for better or For Worse.

“Hmmm….  what's a little  toy grimwalker  doing out here, so far from the castle?”

 The Collector moved to right in front of him, morphing into his shadow. Hunter tensed unconsciously, trying to shift his stance more defensively. 

“I know about Phillip!” Well, he knew some things. 

“I know about the Real Plan for the day of unity.” More like he knew what it wasn’t. 

He put on the most confident persona he could muster. He couldn’t show weakness, but this was personal. He has to know about all this stuff that was hidden from him, before it came back to haunt him and hurt everything and everyone he had sworn to protect.

“But I need to know, what do you know?!What did you tell Belos? What are his tricks?!?!?” Hunter demanded. The Collector cocked their head like  a curious cat. And then in the blink of an eye, disappeared into the cracks in the floor. Or at least that’s how it appeared. 

Hunter whipped around. Fighting to catch a glimpse of the elusive figure as he shifted from wall to wall. Mocking him from the shadows. 

“You silly little mortal, I have played games with this world for longer than you could ever ever imagine. I know the entire history of every witch and living creature that has touched that Galderstone in your chest. I have witnessed the rise and-” PBBBT “of the titans.” The collector made a weird noise that confused Hunter but probably meant something related to death or a similar equivalent. He continued, Hunter struggling to follow his fast moving visuals and tricky speech. 

“I know lot’s of things, way more than you! Why should I tell you anything?” The collector said. 

Hunter steeled himself he would not let himself back out of this now. He was getting his answers about his uncles on his terms. He would make sure everything was a-ok and then he was never talking or thinking about his wasted childhood, grimwalkers, or aiding in genocide, and no one would have know either. 

“Do you want to play a game Collector? Let’s play a game.” Hunter said. 

This was a dangerous game he was playing now. The Collector was an amoral immortal being with a childish sadistic sense of humor from what he had gathered. He had to keep his guard up. 

10 minutes later...

“And then he was all like ‘give me the draining spell’ ‘give me the grimwalker spell’ ‘tell me how to murder them’ ‘tell me how to murder that’ just mimimimimimimimi.” The collector shook their head, a whiny frown on their face. Presently moving around a couple of Hexes’ Holdem’ cards, Hunter the current emperor sat across from him also a full hand in his gloved grasp. 

“And then, after all that, he had the nerve to call me, selfish.” 

Hunter waved his free gloved hand, that wasn’t holding his Hexes Hold’em hand in vehement agreement. He sat criss-cross apple-blood sauce, but in a still quite comfortable manner. 

“Oh my titan, I know right? Like one time (well multiple times) after a 4 hour paperwork catch up a multiple back to back missions that got off the rails midway through, I finished up and feels the need to “complain” about some stupid (mistake, ungratefulness, weakness, anything and everything)... something.. Anyways he’s just such a... hocus-bogus... no-good..wizard!!!!!”

“You said it!,” The collector agreed. His shadowy form gestured dramatically at two of the cards in his deck lying face down across from Hunter. He couldn’t physically interact with anything, but with some awkward maneuvering. And Hunter moving everything for him, they were able to play a nice game. The collector wasn’t all that familiar with the rules, but they were insanely competitive and easily entertained. 

“Your turn, by the way.” Hunter adds, full eagerness to continue the game. And it was at that moment he  realized that he most certainly let down his guard. He very much underestimated the collector, but not because of how malicious or manipulative he is, but because they actually get along shockingly.  And secretly somewhere very very very deep inside in his pulsing galderstone heart, Hunter relates to the Collector. The endless requests asked of him, a slave to Belos’ every whim, and the loneliness. So alone, for so long.

He understands that. 

But obviously none of that is enough to stop the collector, he was still perfectly willing to tell the first person he saw a spell of mass destruction to kill literally-everyone! The method, he notes, flipping over some of the collector's cards he indicates, one of them rises up destroying half of his hand. The other disappears with a pop in a spew of corrosive black slime. Anyways, the method may have slightly changed, but the mission remains the same. He needs to subtly probe,to mask the interrogation questions. 

“So, um Collector,” He starts, carefully drawing a card for his turn, it slips out of his glove, making the collector chuckle but he recovers, moving it to his hand. “What kind of spells of unimaginable, probably forbidden power have you talked to Bel- Phillip about?”

Thankfully the Collector doesn’t seem to detect his probing, either that or they don’t care, the second may be more possible, He answers all the same, casually like talking about murder magic is just another average Tuesday for him. 

“I mean, I told him a lot of stuff and a lot of murder-stuff, and a lot of really funny random stuff. I was just soooooooooo bored, he was only listening half the time though. What an annoyance.”

Hunter hums an agreement, plotting out his next move both for this mission and Game. 

“He was really interested in all the grimwalker stuff though.”

That certainly changes the atmosphere, for Hunter, that is.

“Is that,so?” He squeaked out. He struggled to keep a face of perfect neutrality and apathy. Like this wasn’t at all something he was constantly thinking about, freaking out about questioning his entire life about, etc.

“Yeah, he was obsessed with them, I mean sort of, he was constantly throwing them away, even though they kind of so much work to make.” The collector snorts. 

Hunter hesitantly plays a horns of three suite, he forces himself to swallow. His mouth feels too dry. 

“Well, uh, how many-”

“Oh, man I totally lost count somewhere after the first 100, and there were some that didn’t come out right, so he killed them right away. If they lived long enough that was! The latest one was the youngest. It was a rush job.”

It takes a second to realize the collector was referring to him. And "it". The collector gestures to the card he wants to play. He still finds the game, this whole experience nothing but mild entertainment. Hunter wishes he could go back to 15 minutes ago, when he was still having fun too. But it’s too late too go back. He braves forward. 

The card the Collector plays is suite of the ivy, it destroys his entire hand, save one card on the left. Not the best sign. 

“I was the youngest? how did that work?” He asks cautiously, drawing a card, it’s basically the only move he can do. 

“The last Golden Guard, actually managed to betray Belos, it was wild! Phillip was so caught off guard, I was totally surprised too. I mean, I actually went up to it once, and it was really interesting. But I never expected it to have the guts to actually try something!"

The shadowy form mimics a shadow show, a figure he assumes was the golden guard sneaks up behind the silhouette of the emperor, before he is attacked,killed, and he is thrown to the pit. The only evidence he was ever there a cracked owl mask. Hunter doesn't look now, but he knows the pit must be nearby, who knows maybe he's passed it already without knowing. 

Hunter desperately wants demand their every detail of their interactions, The collector, Golden guards, and Belos. All he was told of the Golden Guards before him was a grandized and more mythical than real, tale of their power, skill, and failures. A fabrication specifically tailored to make sure he never was enough. Constantly weighed down by the legacy and expectations, and all being a golden Guard meant. But if the one before him, actually managed to get one up on Belos (before he died of course), have a life outside the strict restrictions Belos set in iron… 

"Anyways, so he was in a total panic to get another grimwalker made. He needed everything “perfect” for the day of unity, he was extremely obsessive about that y’know?”

If there was one thing he knew about Belos that was the truth, it was that. The collector indicated another card he wanted to play, hunter flipped it over, but luckily his last card was able to cancel it out and it did nothing. Unbothered, the collector continued onward.

“Usually the grimwalker come out at about really young but still a grown up, whatever number that is. But this grimwalker came out suuuuuuper young, I mean like it was this small.” He paused transforming his body to the outline of a small child, looked around 8 years old. Presumably the silhouette of a grimwalker, with red eyes. “I mean I know it was able to get bigger after a few years, but even now it doesn't match up to their age, or power, though that’s just because he made that last one without a bile sac.”

His hand froze, mid-stretched out from the draw pile. “That's- very-interesing?” Hunter could only croak out. He couldn’t keep up with all the information thrown so casually at him. The endless amount of flack everyone had given, the immeasurable disappointment that couldn’t perform even the smallest of spells without his staff. All his blood, sweat, and tears, and painful training to catch up in a world, a system specifically tailored against him. By-by- by- Belos a stupid human himself who didn’t even have a Bile sac either.  This whole time, he thought it was just the way he was, but could've- - He retracted his hand, switching tactics playing the card he had drawn last round, the oracle jack override the spell point of the collectors cards, and two of them joined his hand. He was furious, he was distressed, he was a hurricane of emotions trapped in a bottle starting to crack with a lid magically sealed on. But he made sure the only emotion that showed was intense concentration.

“Your move. What was so special about m- about the grimwalker who would be the golden Guard for the day of unity?”

The collector shrugged, indicating the draw pile, Hunter drew a card, showing face back to the collector and setting down on his side.

“Nothing in particular, he was just really paranoid that the grimwalker would betray him again. So he made it unable to as much as he could. No access to anyone or anything that might "corrupt" him, no magic or fighting that he wouldn’t easily be able to defend against. He made sure you feared him almost as much as you loved him.” 

The statement was unnerving, almost as much as the collector switching from calling him “the grimwalker” or “it” to “you”.  His laughter made the whole thing even more eerie, but Hunter could do nothing but draw another card, building up his reserves. 

“And it’s hilarious that even after all that it still turned out to betray him in the end.” 

The uneasy feeling kept building up, only amplified by everything around him. All this Talk about Phillip or Belos and grimwalkers and golden Guard. His hand started trembling his cards, the gloves could only hide so much. He slammed them down. 

“I HAVE TO GO>” 

The collector stopped his laughter, their smile turning outside down to a disappointed frown. “Now?” 

“I HAVE- have to get back to the castle and do very important stuff, that requires my immediate attention.” He said, trying to get a hold of himself, step one exit the current situation in nonsupsicious manner.

He grabbed his staff leaning against the near by wall. Collecting himself, he walked out the doors for a better view for teleporting. 

“Are you sure you have to go, right now?” The collector asked, following his progress along the cavern. 

Hunter thought about grimwalkers, witches, and humans, about days of unity, and self-sabotaging systems of destruction and genocide, he thought of his friends. His people, he was the emperor now. He had a responsibility to take care of all this, even more so after all he learned. 

“Yes.” It was the final answer. 

The collector circled around his marching body, as if somehow they could prevent him leaving or something. 

“But you’ll come back right,soon?” 

Hunter paused, the staff in his hand prepared to make the journey back to the castle and bonesborough. 

“Gotta finish the game, see who wins after all, I’ll be back Collector.Byeeeeeeeeeeee!”

And with that he teleported to the forest, and fell to his knees. 

“Oh my titan. Oh my titan!Ohmytitanohmytitan. What did I do?!?!? Did I really just say that to the collector!?!?!? And play HEXES HOLD’EM WITH THEM. And left the isles!!!!!!! IN THE MIDDLE OF A NATION WIDE RIOT!?!?!?!?! TO commit BLASPHEMY or whatever!!!!!”

He paced around feverishly, too uneasy to continue teleporting. Too scared of what they ahead. 

“Okay, okay, no biggie, the collector doesn’t intentionally malicious, but Belos is still alive.”

He tugged on his stray piece of hair, not liking where all this was going. 

“Luz is still out there somewhere too. The coven system s doing slightly better at the detriment of the peace of boiling isles. And apparently I’m only about 8 years old. I geuss Luz was right when she said I had no childhood.” A hysterical laugh bubbled up inside of him, before giving way to a sense of overwhelming hopelessness.

He sank down, leaning against a tree, he let out a very long groan, burying his face in his hands. He stayed like that for an… amount of time, he told himself only long enough to catch his breath, but in truth it was way longer than that. 

His anxious brooding was interrupted at the sound of… pecking? It wasn’t on him, or his strand of hair, like usually. He looked up to see flapjack just hovering there, his little red wing working to keep him in place, as he furiously pecked at the staff of the Golden Guard that had gotten him here. 

He sprung up at that. Racing over there, to get there in time before Flapjack broke it. Something snapped, and that seemed to please the bird.

“Flapjack stop that, you might permanently break something!” 

Flapjack let out an indignant huff at that. Hunter snatched back his staff, holding it behind his back in case any other action was taken. He had no idea if it was broken, but had to keep it away from the palisman for now. 

“How-how did even find me- so quickly?”

Still angry, though willing enough to answer, he chirped a sharp response. 

“It’s really been that long?”

Flapjack deemed it affirmative. 

Less angry it seemed. he landed on Hunter’s shoulder asking a few questions.

“What-no, I’m not- I’m not “stalling” or “procrastinating” or scared!!!! Definitely not that!!” He tried to position himself confidently as possible.
“I don’t know what gave you that absurd impression.” 

Flapjack used a soft trilling tone to respond to that, Hunter hated it. 

“Look, It’s fine, everything’s fine, I’ve got everything under control. There is a perfectly valid reason, I’m waiting to go back to the castle and emperorship , and um… something” He tried. 

He titled his wooden bird head to the side, still a bit skeptic it seemed of his words. He took off, flying towards an unknown direction. Hunter took off after him. 

“Wait, Flapjack I-” Sadly without flapjack, and leaving behind his other staff. He truly was powerless. He couldn’t stop Flapjack from leaving. Ugh. He felt so selfish, he left Flapjack in the middle of a warzone (with his most trusted friends, but still), but the moment flapjack decides to, he feels betrayed. He was such a hypocrite, but he couldn’t help it. Flapjack had been the one to stay by his side, throughout everything, but had he finally had enough?

Plop! A pale green colored cloth covered his face, he paused his breakdown to remove it from his face. Apparently not. Flapjack perched on a branch close by, he chirped encouragingly, to hunter to put on the cloak. 

“Oh, thank you.”

The palisman took that as his cue, transforming into the staff. 

The cloak half on, Hunter lunged to catch it. With one arm free he finished putting the cloak on. Well, he had to eventually get started. At least this way he wouldn’t totally be exposed. 

Using a quick wildlife survival trick to figure out which way to civilization, he mounted up and took off. 

The town was quiet. Which could be either a bad or good sign. Approaching the more busy part of civilization he slowed to a halt. Leaping off his staff. Flapjack detransformed, and with the hood up, Hunter warily started walking. 

There wasn’t that many people out and about, it wasn’t that busy this time of evening typically, so it wasn’t totally out of the ordinary. At the very least nobody was fighting. He passed a few people who seemed in an apathetic mood, or perhaps mildly displeased. Everything was so calm, and weird… It took Hunter halfway to the castle to work up the nerve to approach someone. 

Stopping by a potions cart, because might as while multitask, information-gathering, with  shopping. He plucks a carefully crafted glass bottle with mysterious liquid sloshing around inside. 

“So, um,” Making careful note, to attempt to disguise his voice, titan knows it didn’t work before, on account of his voice being too “distinct” , but better than nothing. “I heard there was some sort of “fight” or something recently, how did that end up going?”

The potion master huffs, “That’s an understatement, I’m surprised you weren’t there, or at least witness of it.” 

Did he think he was suspicious? Hunter tried his best to seem innocent and normal, under the cover of a dark clothing that covered most of his features as the sun went down.

Awkward cough,

“Anyways, the fight was pretty intense, but it ended. Don’t seem to be much casualties for the boiling isle’s first civil war since the savage ages, though the healing whatever the equivalent of the coven (after that whole decovenization, covenheads arrested, no more sigil marking )has been jam-packed. Now that all the grievances have aired, more concentration and cooperation could be put on straightening out this coven business. And lally-lelly happily ever after or whatever.”

“Oh, well.That’ nice.” Hunter fished a coin out of his pocket to pay the good witch, “Thanks for-”

“Except for the missing emperor.” His tone went low, and suspicious, suddenly the area around Hunter darkened, the familiar surroundings, the lightning went screwy and dramatic in a way that could not be natural. Hunter felt uneasy and freaked out for a moment before spotting the man’s illusion sigil,

“Wait, is this really an illusion?”

The man looked sheepish, “My theater troupe’s disbanded, until the emperor’s coven is stable enough to approve it, or something,this is actually my brother’s stand- but anyways, the important thing is- THE MISSING EMPEROR!! He was last seen during the riots, after his pivotal, and somewhat controversial announcement-" HUnter winced at that. "-. A huge deplorable crowd of pro-sigilers rose in an attempt to overtake, and betray HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIM! Luckily we, “ 

He said,as the lightning switched up to portray him in a glamorous and heroic pose, and breeze swooshing his hair back. 

“The people, Came to his aid, the fight was ferocious!!! And after a particularly violent bout had come to end, we found he was missing!!! But who to blame?”

In the midst of the man’s illusion, a swirl of scenery, random roses and sparkles, Hunter desperately hoped he couldn’t see his guilty expression. 

“It must be, THE PRO-SIGILERS, but to what extent? Did they just harm him, and the emperor is recovering? Is he captured somewhere, being tortured, or scrambling to freedom somewhere!!! Is he dead? Are we once more without an emperor, in our most crucial time?”

Well one thing was for certain, that man, definitely needed his theater troupe approved for a proper outlet, he obviously had way too much free time on his hands, if he he just offered up this performance to every customer that asked a question. 

“Well that sounds, very cinematic, I definitely want to see your productions of that f ictional-”

“However, some whisper of another possibility.” 

There was a sudden ambient change in scenery that made Hunter very uncomfortable, the ominous scene made Hunter compare possibilities he was going to portray to Belos’ mood after a failed mission.

“He comes along, changes our ways, makes all these elaborate changes and restrictions after a suspicious death. Maybe he’s just been stringing us along this whole time, playing the long-con, stripping down our defenses so he DO US IN!” Hunter jumped at the sudden admission. 

“And blow this potion stand, onto the next place.”

“I-” That’s not what I- That’s belos- I didn’t- I- “Have to go.” Hunter said, with urgency and nervousness worming around in the grimwalker equivalent of a stomach. 

The man at the stand must have noticed his apprehension, and tried to backstep. The background illusion dissipated. 

“Woah, kid, I jest, I joke, I wasn’t serious. I mean, I love the new emperor! Between you and me the last one was kind of a-” 

He made one last illusion spell behind him of something… Let’s just say he was lucky Hunter wasn’t the golden guard anymore. 

Hunter pressed the coin down, pocketing the potion. 

“Well that’s great, but I have to get going.” With internal tensions higher than before running through him, the castle was in sight, and he prepared to infiltrate. Between all this suspicion a front entrance was too risky.

He turned back one last time, “Thanks for the information, I suppose.”

The secret entrance reserved for Hunter entering the castle so Belos would never know he was gone was a little higher than your regular entrance. However wasn’t high enough to require a staff transformation in Hunter’s opinion. 

He fixed the passage in minds eye it was under a moat part that would be deeply unpleasant to fall into but nothing he couldn’t handle. He didn’t even need to teleport.

He looked up. 

“All ready, Flap?” The bird tweeted an affirmative, hovering right above the passage ready to assist. He flaps were steady and even, but he knew his part. 

“Okay. Ready set… go!” Hunter took off, racing across until he reached the moat and leaping into the air, Flapjack begun flapping more furiously as Hunter's elevation reached it’s peak. Just when he was about to lose his momentum, he grabbed onto flapjack’s little legs. Letting the flying palisman provide an air cushion until he swiftly grabbed the secret door knob hidden on the wall. Twisting it he yanked it open with his other hand letting go of flapjack. He rolled through checking quickly if the coast was clear. He moved onward through the elaborate hallway. There was a little pause after he really noticed the little differences. A lot of what Lilith had referred to as “Emperor Belos propaganda” was gone. It was a little more… humble I suppose. He continued on, nonetheless at the very least, security wasn’t high which meant visible threats were on radar. 

He passed a burnt piece of chair on the ground that he remembered from the riots. Or maybe forces were being focused elsewhere.

He was getting closer and closer to a possible objective. Mission: reconcile with everyone, and make sure to do whatever it took so they didn’t hate him. He beckoned flapjack to scout ahead for the final layer to improvised security/panic and/or planning room. The guards had been easily avoided, partially due to the fact that Hunter arranged half the rotations or supervised and approved them. But there’s no way the final part would be that easy.  A cheerful chirping from his loyal palisman immediately contradicted his line of though, with confirmation of a clear coast. 

His gloves were still on, despite everything he had faced and survived, he still couldn’t shake the notion that the moment he relaxed with them off, he would be hurt by something he wasn’t protected from. The handle shook from the trembling of his hand as he hesitantly cracked it open.

 Flapjack landed on his shoulder, an attempt at comfort. And Hunter appreciated the thought, despite what little it did. 

“This- this isn’t belos. I’m not- They’re not going to hurt me.” He tried to make the distinction clear, but for whatever reason his sweating palms wouldn’t get the memo. 

Ready or not. (definitely not). He stepped inside. 

It was just the grownups. Which I guess made sense. The school system, especially hexside was pretty independent of the coven system by this time, they couldn't function easily without. Most of his friends were most likely in school. Like Willow, she was probably in a plant classroom, showing off her amazing skills. He fearless courage and bravo. Her amazing… 

Wait! He got distracted by the thought of Hexside, everyone was there anyways, not just the miraculous, talented, plane track genius Willow. Well except Luz. Who knows where she was right now. Hunter tugged on his stray hair worriedly. Before Flapjacked tugged it out of his fingers, focus he said. 

Hunter stared ahead at four very important witches arguing and talking loudly around a table. Eda the owl lady, three Ex-coven heads, Darius, Eber and Raine. Focus right. 

He took a step forward. And then three steps back. 

“Y’know what, Flapjack, they look busy, and whatever they’re discussing is probably really important.  I think I’ll just come back later.” At that comment, Flapjack raised the eyebrow above his scarred eye. He perched pertitaly on Hunter’s head, readying for something. Hunter looked suspiciously at that. 

“What are you-”

CHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRP. The loud sound immediately drew the attention of said grownups in the room. Hunter froze. 

The discourse stopped almost immediately, Hunter eyed the door, but it was too late. They had already seen him. 

All at once they turned towards him. Hunter’s mind went blank, this was it. He was going to get his due punishment. He shouldn’t have run away like a coward. They were getting closer and closer.

He tensed up, there was no avoiding it, he did deserve it like Belos said. The emperor raised his arm against him, preparing to strike. 

And then two arms embraced him. Hunter could nothing but blink in surprise. This wasn’t painful, or even entrapping he could easily break free if he wanted. It was gentle and… comforting. 

“Hunter,” Belos- no Eda said, “I’m so sorry for what happened are you alright?”

She let go, looking at him with those sympathetic eyes, saying she was the one that was sorry. It wasn't what he was expecting, he almost could’t wrap his head around the action. 

“Hunter, are you okay?” Darius joined as well, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder. Raine and Eberwolf too aproached with worried faces. 

He didn’t know how to react to this, but he should probably answer soon.

 “I” What should he say, what was he supposed to say? “I’m fine.” 

The reaction of their faces made it clear they didn’t believe him. He continued on anyways. 

“I’m sorry, for abandoning the isles during the riot, that was irresponsible of me.”Hunter quoted, the first part of the speech rehearsed in his head, on the way here.

“Look, Hunter,” Raine stepped in, speaking for a change. “None of us blame, this whole situation is crazy! If anything we all should have been more proactive to help you, it’s not your responsibility to mop up the mess Belos made carving up the isles and the magic system.

“And if anyone disagrees, they’ll have to answer to the no. 1 criminal on the boiling isles, three coven heads, and a tough as-nails flyer derby team!” Eda added, a protective urge in her voice. 

Hunter looked at the others to find them agreeing. Eber growled an affirmative, Raine smiled encouragingly, even Darius nodded his approval. 

Hunter struggled to refute that, even though it made no sense for him to. 

“But you’re not wanted any more, and you three aren’t covenheads, technically.” 

“That system was ridiculous, anyways, none of that matters. The only important thing is we’re on your side.” Darius said, in a completely sincere tone. 

A warm feelings erupted in his chest, something similar whenever Belos praised him after a mission. But different more.. nice? He didn't exactly know how to describe it. But there would be time to deal with his feelings later. It was time to update info on his mission.

“Anyways, speaking of the whole thing,” He gestured, it was pretty obvious what he was talking about.  “Did it end okay, anything I should be worrying about?” Hunter said. 

The grownups shared a private look, that Hunter tried hard not to feel left out of. Raine seemed to notice Hunter’s worry, they responded apologetically. 

“We are going to tell you, but it’s just-well-”

“Everything’s fine, kid.” Eda finally said.

“Really?” Hunter asked a bit skeptically.

“I mean not everything’s magically fixed, but the feelings are kind of out in the open, any fights or arguments now will not end in a fight. Democracy is being fixed, by my sister and others, and I’m sure it’ll work itself out. No major problem accounted for…”

The first part seems optimistic, and good development for his endgame plan for the isles. But it seemed too good to be true, and the Eda’s tone seemed to dip a little at the end.

“Except?”

“Luz, Hooty, and King are still missing, we have no idea where they went after they came back, if they did at all.”  Eda said her tone was strained, and it was obvious she had been stressing about this for a while. Her tone grew a little more frantic, and feathers starting growing on her arm that she nervously picked at. Raine placed their hand on Eda’s shoulder. A question or lump formed in Hunter’s throat, with belos he would have just choked it back, but hesitantly he opened his mouth, 

“Is that what you were arguing about?”

“Well technically, we also discussing what to do about your absence.” Eda said. Hunter felt a slice of guilt. 

“But now you’re back so, one down, um three to go.” Raine tried to add optimistically. 

Hunter took a deep breath, everyone else was working so hard, now it was his time. Time to go to work and do his part. 

“I’ll also assist, now that I’m back and peace has stabilized, I should be able to devote a few resources to this or provide you with whatever you need,” 

He cleared his throat. 

“As, uh- the Emperor I authorize, Eda Clawthorne The owl lady, Wild witch ambassador, EberWolf, Raine Whispers, and Darius to use whatever resources nessasary to bring home Luz Noceda Clawthorne the Human, King Clawthorne the Rat-dog thing, and Hootisfer… Clawthorne? The demonic owl-tube. Also you're all pardoned(should have officially done that a long time ago.)"

Eda looked gratefully for a moment, and Hunter wondered if she was going to shake his hand or salute. But instead she gave him another hug. It was.. Nice again. Hunter almost wanted to ask for another one, or ask how he could obtain these rewards from others. But that would have unprofessional and selfish, so he just muttered you’re welcome. 

After that she and Raine rushed out the door eager to get started. 

Hunter should probably get started as well, Luz and co. missing wasn’t actually the only problem. Belos was out there somewhere with knowledge of forbidden magic and a bone to pick with everyone he cared about. There was the suspiciousness about the missing abomintron shipments, and plenty of old enemies still angry despite the promotion. 

He had to get started on these as soon as possible, he made his way out the door. How should he publicize his return, could be do it quietly? How-

“Hunter, wait.” Darius said. 

Hunter stopped in his tracks, he had forgotten Darius was still there, what was he concerned about, did he do something wrong?

“Are you-” The abominaglop that was his hair shlooped nervously “still planing to go through with.. That thing you mentioned in the secret meeting?”

Hunter tried to remember what he could be talking about, he titled his head, “What… thing specifically?”

Darius motioned to his head, miming some taking off a crown. 

Oh that thing. 

“You mean me abdicating the throne.” Darius looked slightly panicked, but that indicated yes. He wondered why Darius was touchy about saying it aloud. It's true he hadn't told anyone else but that just because of situation more than confidentiality.

“Hunter, is the workload?” Darius asked. 

“No, Honestly I’ve never worked less.” Hunter said, 

“That’s sad, is it the stress?”

“Not really, I feel like I’d be worried and feel a responsibility either way. ” 

“Is it- do you think you’re not a good leader, was it something I said in the past?”

Hunter was quiet for a moment, he wanted to tell Darius no without hesitation, but a lot of the stuff Darius said to him when he was the Golden Guard still had an effect on him to a degree. Hunter finally answered. 

“The most pressing reason is, I think it’s time. A strong leader might try to hold on to power as long as they can, but a good leader knows when it’s time to step aside and let someone else have a turn.” 

Trying to seem wise, but secretly super anxious. Hunter looked to see how Darius would respond to that. 

“Hunter, I’m so sorry that I wasn’t part of more of the good parts of your life. My previous disdain was out sorrow and petty revenge, not even on the right person. You deserve so much more happiness and to go wherever you want to go, and do whatever you want to do. Whatever role you let me play in your life, I’ll support you no matter what. Even though I and others did nothing to help, in fact in spite of it, you’ve grown up to be one of the most capable and selfless leaders in a long time. I’m so proud of you, whatever you choose, and Abel would be too.”

He have him a short embrace and then shlooped out the door, all elegant and graceful. Hunter stood shockstill for a moment. Did that really happen? Did Darius just.. Apologize to him for something as small as never treating him nicely? And say he was proud of him? Abel, was that the name of the previous Golden Guard? Did all that just happen? 

Still trying to process everything he took a step forward, he was supposed to going somewhere right? He feet continued moving forward with no brain connect He continued walking down the hallway before a nasty voice interrupted his still processing brain. 

“Why if isn’t the golden brat.” Kikimora said. 

Hunter looked down at the small woman. 

“What are you doing here?” For once it wasn’t said, meanly or sarcastically. He was genuinely curious. He hadn’t fired her, even though Lilith highly suggested it, he didn’t feel it necessary, once Kikimora learned he was in charge he assumed she would just leave. She had tried to sabotage/frame/murder multiple times (probably even recently). 

“I work here, I’m one of the few true Emperor’s coven loyalist, and when Belos comes back, he’ll make you suffer for the shame you’ve brought on the position of the golden guard, and promote me!” She cackled gleefully, and slightly delusionally. 

“I’m not the Golden Guard, that position doesn’t exist (and never will again) and If you’re hear to kill me, you won’t, I have security and allies with a 1-mile radius.” Hunter said. 

She scowled at him. “You can’t prove anything, but I’m going to prove you don’t deserve to be up there, I know you had something to do with great True emperor Belos death!” 

Hunter didn’t really see how, he wasn’t anywhere around and she should know. How hatred and rivalry truly made you blind. On the side he wondered how she would react to knowing he was going to abdicate. 

“You may have everyone fooled, but you’re ruling with make everything worse, you don’t deserve this! You didn’t even deserve the golden guard position.” 

Almost on impulse Hunter considered a taunt, just officially firing her, having security dispose of her or even doing it himself. Kikimora had been a thorn and constant pain, for his entire life. She probably (well definitely) thought the same of him. But while she did deal out quite a bit of damage, was she the true enemy?

Finally he said something quite surprising himself. 

“You don’t deserve it either.” 

“What are you talking about, you imbecile, I am the one who was most loyal, after everything!!! I sacrificed so much, almost everything, I did everything for the sake of the emperor, I deserve this!” 

Would she even understand, would she ever understand? Maybe this whole conversation was useless, waste of time. If the spell with the emperor’s mind or Luz had never come along. Would hunter have even considered his situation?

In all honesty what he felt about Kikimora was mostly annoyance, and aggravation mixed with pity, it mostly equaled out to apathy in the end. 

 But He sighed. All in all he had to say something. Like Luz and entrails that had placed a hopeless bet on him. And secretly for the hand that had never reached out to him all those wasted blasted years in the coven.

“Not that you care, or probably will listen, but I want to assure kikimora that, it doesn’t how unwaveringly loyal or how much you sacrificed. It doesn’t matter if you follow him to the ends of the earth or lay down your life for his cause. It will never be enough for him. You will always be a means to the end, and a toy to be thrown away the second he feels like it. Your loyalty means absolutely nothing, and when it comes down to it, he leave to die and rot away with a smile on his face, like it was your fault all along.” 

Hunter suddenly stopped. He didn't’ mean to get so serious, or so intense. He stepped back, trying to distance himself from the whole thing. 

“I mean, even you don’t deserve that, byeeeeeee!!”

He teleported out of the slightly awkward situation she probably wouldn’t even consider. Outside he covered his face with his gloves to obscure his shame. 

“Why do I keep leaving conversations like that. I need to stop. Ughhhhh.” He had a real problem. He looked up The blights house right about in the direction that should be a thattaway.

But first he needed to deal with the bigger one. 

He summoned flapjack. Maybe a quick ride and some conversation would be good. 

He hopped on and took off. 

“I mean, I should have something prepared. After last time yeesh!”

I think purple headed-witch will not be that mad. And if she is I will make sure cannot physically hurt you. 

“You mean won’t?” Hunter asked, continuing the conversation as they flew at high speeds.

No. 

Pushing that aside, “Look, Flapjack, she has a right to, I mean what I did was really bad. I tried to hurt everyone, I threatened Luz, I basically destroyed what I know now is there only way home. And with Luz gone too, that just makes things worse.” 

Just say that you are very sorry, and didn’t mean to.

“But that’s the problem, I do regret what I said and what I threatened to do, but she’ll never believe I didn’t mean it.” 

Good Witch, Hunter is a Good Witch and Purple girlfriend of Human will understand. 

“I hope you’re right.” Hunter said, even though he didn’t believe it. “Because it looks like we’re here. “ He summoned Flapjack and slickly landed on his feet. 

Approaching the door slowly, sorely tempted to just run away. But knowing Flapjack could easily sell him out like last time, convinced of irrational good impressions Hunter made on people. (And yeah, maybe last time he was right, but this time he could still be wrong.)

He recited in his head, what apology Amity would be most likely to accept, now that there wasn’t an external reason for her to tolerate him. Being the human’s girl friend she was most likely gone against the emperor hierarchy for a while. Being the golden guard hadn't warranted a moment of hesitation, being the emperor wouldn't change any grudge, especially since he didn't plan on continueing as the emperor. 

 He knocked three times on the wooden door to the huge estate.

“Hunter?” Amity answered. Hunter opened his mouth in preparation for the perfect apology, but instead the jumble that came out was:

“Ohmytitan, I’mreallysorryreallysorry. IwouldneveractuallyhurtluzatmostIwouldjusttalkbigabouttheemperortoheryouprobablydon’tbelieveme.AndItotallydeserveit.Iacceptwhateverpunishmentyoudeemfit.Ijustwanttotrulyapologize.”

By the time he got all that out. He realized it was definitely bad format for apology. She probably didn't even understand half of it. Nonetheless he was well past out of breath. Idly he wondered if it was the special stonesleeper lungs he had that allowed to get that whole out in one word basically. 

“Look, Hunter,”Amity started, Hunter held his breath, trying to seem apologetic but not an anxious wreck. 

“It’s okay, I’m not angry about that anymore.”

Out of all the responses he was preparing for that was not one of them. 

He should probably say a gracious thank you or something but all that came out was:

“Why?”

At that, Amity took a deep breath, that question seemed to evoke a lot for her. 

“It’s… why don’t you come inside, it’s sort of complicated.”

Following her lead, he entered the house. Amity sat down on  a purple lounge chair, though almost every piece of furniture was some shade of purple. Hunter sat down across from her, on one that more resembled indigo velvet. Amity looked deep in thought, and a little anxious, it honestly reminded him of how he felt. Worry for how his past actions, would have consequence for the future. A lifetime of mistakes he regretted being pulled to the surface. Looking in a reflective mirror in the center amity ran a hand through her purple hair. She was building up resolve, but finally she seemed ready. 

“In all honesty…” Amity started. “I was really mad at you to start with, even when I found out you joined the emerald entrails. I kind of wanted to tell Willow and Gus to stay away from you.” 

Hunter tried to not react to that, and masking the movement with adjusting his position. Amity didn’t seem to notice, or maybe care. 

“But then after a while, after everything. I realized you don’t deserve it, and I kind of don’t have the right to judge you after everything I’ve done.” 

That perked Hunter’s interest. The parents, though mostly Odalia blight seemed a tiny suspicious and aggravating, but from what Hunter had discerned Amity had been against them from the start or at least not involved in their kind of behavior. 

“I mean I was mad at you for threatening Luz, But I literally tried to dissect her when we first met.”  She laughed lightly. 

Hunter had no idea how to react to that.

“I’m not entirely surprised a situation like that happened to Luz, Knowing her, but I have to ask for the story.” Hunter inquired. 

“It’s a long story, maybe some other time, or you could ask Gus or willow later.” She seemed to embarrassed about the whole thing. 

“Anyways the main thing, maybe I know better now. Or I kind of knew better then, I guess it's more I'm able to stand up against what I know is wrong now- but I was not really a good person to Gus or willow, or Luz at first.”

What did that mean?

“I did really mean things, trampled over everyone to stay on top to make sure to I stayed on my Mom’s good side.”

Now, that Hunter really understood. But it felt more personal what she was getting to. 

“I would look down on everyone, I tormented Willow for years.” 

With that statement, Hunter stood up so quickly the couch made a scraping sound. 

“You bullied the Captain!” He was outraged and astounded, was that Willow meant when she had implied people hadn’t always understood how powerful and incredible she was and called her half-a-witch. Why would amity keep doing something like that, for years on end. Amity looked away ashamed, and Hunter remembered the whole point of this conversation. He had hurt the captain too, the first time they met. 

He sat down. “I’m sorry for getting upset, maybe what did was wrong, but you’ve done a lot better now it seems. I don't really have the best place to judge you from either. I know Willow doesn't need defending. And as long as you never let it happen again."

"I could never imagine doing it now, but I'm ashamed at how easy it was to fill that role. To just let my mother make my life like that."

"At least, you were smart enough to know better. I sincerely served Belos, I just wanted to help and make him proud, and did terrible rotten things for not even a ounce of approval. I had to be basically smacked in the face with the truth, and even then I was still to late for some things."

"Hey, I'm really worried about Luz as well, but I do know she would just be so happy at how much you have changed and done."

"I appreciate the thought," He should probably say the same thing back too, right? That's how it works? "I'm glad... you- and Willow are totally square?" 

“Hmm... yeah..." For some reason Amity didn't seemed positive about that, but there was no time to dwell on that. If anything was serious he would just discuss it the formidable captain.

"Seriously though Hunter, you got rid of my mom, I could never be angry with you after that. I owe you." Amity said. 

"Oh, it was.. it was nothing. I kind wanted to do that for a long time anyway."

Amity laughed at that

“Yeah, I guess it does.” Hunter said, “Hey abomination with vaguely cat shaped ears, get us both a some Apple-blood, light.” He made sure to add, the non-alcoholic one, he had to fly home and not to mention despite going to toe to toe with some pretty serious stuff and Hunter being the current leader of the place. Both were dreadfully underage. 

Amity snickered at that, but nonetheless took a glass from the offered tray. 

“To Luz kick starting our redemption arcs.” Amity said, raising the glass. Hunter grabbed one two, struggling a bit to grip it through the gloves. 

"Redemption arcs?" He questioned.

"Something Luz talks about sometimes, not completely sure what it is, but sounds nice enough."

Hunter shrugged. 

"To humans and friends." He said.

“To friends.” Amity said.  They clinked glasses. 

“Y’Know, I actually came to talk to you about a few more things, speaking of Luz, and previous emperor coven misdeeds, do you know anything about a bunch of missing…

Somewhere in the outskirts of the wilderness and Bonesborough. A young girl stood resolutely conducting a meeting she deemed of “utmost importance”. A crooked branch, improvised pointer held in one hand rapped against a board. One that she had asked Hooty to politely obtain, which in response  Hooty had interpreted as to flat-out steal and traumatize the owners.

In any case on the board were several detailed pictures with notes around them. 

Feeling responsible for King- Hooty would probably be fine no matter what happened- she observed her impromptu students. 

“Yes, king, you have a question?” 

“Um, why is everyone older?” 

“Uhhh…” Luz looked at her drawings, and found it was indeed true every character from the reverse/beta au from fierce Willow with shorter hair and a yellow trenchcoat, To a much more casual looking Hunter, in a yellow hoodie. Gus still looked short though. 

“Also why is Amity so much more detailed than everyone else?” That was true, she had spent a lot more time on her beautiful, awesome girlfriend. She exactly meant to but inspiration and time had slipped away with her. 

Luz decided to go with the cop-out answer, “These are just guesses, so technically they could be any age or color, or species…”

It was a bit quiet at that, except for Hooty chasing after a leaf, he insisted had wronged him. 

Luz recovered with determination. “Anyways the main takeaway should be to avoid contact with my alternate self, if she’s here and I haven’t replaced her, or at least make sure she doesn’t contact me. And politely get a private audience-”

“Oh, you mean, we’re going to kidnap someone.” Hooty enthusiastically interjected. 

Technically is things we’re as bad as she estimated they were Hooty wouldn’t be far off. But she chose not to address that for now. 

“With anyone, though leaning towards Hunter or amity, they had these redemption arcs where they switched sides sort of, it should make them more likely to be on ours.”

“It kind of sounds more like you’re just picking moral alignments or different versions of you friends and calling them canon based on my preferential feelings.” Hooty stated. His wide eyes blinked, not unlike a slightly unnerving way.

“Fine, then let’s kidnap Hunter and interrogate him, why not! that sound good?” 

“Sounds, good!” Hooty said, Shaking the front part of his tubular body-face-head up and and down in an intent to nod. 

“Uh, sounds good to me.” King said, seemingly distracted or lost in many troubling thoughts. 

Luz knew she should probably talk about that, the whole titan, and trapper’s, even the collector being mentioned. But she needed to make sure her family was safe, so she could go to the regular boilings, and then… back home. She desperately wished Eda was here, or her mom. With the day of unity approaching, King being a titan, no one was safe and it was all her fault. She looked out to the boiling isles she knew was somewhere through the tree, she just needed to fix everything. She had to. 

Chapter Text

The“Gooood Morning Boiling isles!!!!!” Hunter cheerfully proclaimed, to the whole of the boiling isles. He looked down at the large land mass, the titan, from up here everything looked like tiny specks. 

He had a taken early morning fly-by, and blissfully took in the whole of the boiling isles from a spot Eda had recommended. She had told him, if he was going to insist on continually waking up 6:00 on the dot, might as well make something of it. 

The view of the titan, the isle-- everything was a nice one. But it would be even better shared with someone else,anyone else Hunter couldn’t help thinking. The captain,for one  he had seen her last week, for the emerald entrails game.

That had been an awkward match. One that Hunter had almost regretted . Someone had recognized Hunter as the Emperor mid game. And the Emerald Entrails had been thrown off their game trying to cover that off. If not for the captains quick thinking, with the last minute combo move,they wouldn't have even pulled off a tie. 

The after party hadn't so bad. Belos had been gone from his usual routine for long enough already and no grown up could or wanted to punish him for any failure. And he knew that. 

Even so, it had a but nerve wracking facing his teammates after letting them down. But they had still insisted on cheering him up, and celebrating the chance to play together. Willow, (well the rest of emerald entrails too) had embraced him. 

Friends they said. That sounded familiar. 

Hunter tried to not think about the horrible things that could have been happening to their other mutual friend. 

Luz was fine, she was a capable human, with her glyphs and the owl-tube-house-demon,was more than capable and merciless enough to to fend off danger as well. Even the adopted other thing with his scream-y power wouldn't let anything happen to his family. 

She had too many people waiting and watching for her to not return. Soon she'd back and everything could go back to a version of normal that currently existed. They could even go go school together!

He wouldn't do anything ridiculous like the human and decide to take on every single track.

But...

He'd love to be in Willow's class! Learn about the plants and their properties even magical characteristics, like how they were used in potions. And in the potions track, he was sure they'd be many practical applications that would helpful. Just like in the construction track. He always found it impressive how sturdy the houses were despite how fast they were built almost as fast as the griffins learned to play that they learned about in beast keeping! Oh, and the bard track was sure to help him improve on his music enough to impress Raine. And the illusionist was sure to be great fun with Gus! And with luck he'd be able to keep up with Amity better if he learned the theories and mechanics behind abominations. Oh! And healing coven he had wanted to learn everything about (for slightly traumatizing piratical reasons) his whole life, and it was great he already knew someone (Viney)in there as well! And he wanted to take oracle classes to find out, why... well they never did anything. Seriously, maybe it was a false impression but he thought oracles were supposed to be able to see the future yet or see the truth, but not one had seen anything about Belos plan coming? Then again if they had even hinted at, he no doubt Belos would have never allowed them to exist. He'd definitely have to do research into the history--

Hunter stopped, suddenly realizing that joining all these tracks was exactly what the Luz did, but he had foolishly already become attached to every single one and couldn't fathom dropping one. Now that no one was versing what he studied. He wanted- no needed to learn all he possibly could. 

He sighed. Enough reminiscing for one day. Small inconsequential problems like these were preferable ones to have. It was about time he get back to life. The boiling isles was just waking up and it was the perfect time to check on everyone. 

He zoomed down.  The world of witches and more coming into view. Most had soon found it the norm to see the emperor out and about and paid him no heed. 

Except…

"Hunter, my man! How's it flying?" 

Hunter smiled, flying over to Viney who was riding on puddles going somewhere. Puddles chirped with delight almost coming after. It had been interesting to discover, hatred or fondness puddles displayed the same amount of utter violent unrestraint. 

“Good. It’s all good, I’ve been making so much progress on the monarchy, and uh… other projects! I think I even may a new friend!” 

She shot him a finger guns, steering the griffin right up. “Coolio. What’s their name!” 

Hunter did not even know how he was supposed to lie to Viney about the collector, what had started from innocent information gathering had spiraled into actual sincere friendship, at least he was pretty sure. Aside from his freaky behavior in the beginning. Hunter had figured out the Collector had more of a behavioral moral compass, combined with huge alienation from life forms, their moral code withstanding. From what could vaguely grasp about their conversations on the collector's "Before" he was pretty powerful and immortal,probably since such lengths as these were taken to trap him and he wasn't just killed. He wasn't sure how powerful, but due the isolation and suspicious lack of any sort of familial figure he speared quite severely emotionally stunted, despite the thousands of years he had claimed to exist. 

His creepy and off-putting behavior before had been mostly imitating belos in a hope a bond would develop, or some deeper connection would form. Which...

Same. Honestly.

Shame it hadn’t worked out for either of them.

Their behavior had been toned down anyway, once Hunter continued interacting with them. 

They even talked more about the secrets of the past and grimwalkers, and the mysterious history of the collector. He wasn’t sure how to react about their information about the Titans and their terrible siblings. 

Hunter suddenly burst into a coughing fit hoping the timing wasn’t too suspicious. 

“I actually gotta jet, I don’t supposed you’ve seen any of the post- catts, (what do they even call themselves now a days)?”

Viney tapped a finger against her face, before shaking her head. 

“I haven’t seen them since last week but I think I remember Skara saying something about summer get-back together at the owl house.”

Hunter smiled a warm gratitude. 

“Thanks a flock."

 "Viney, Gracious salutations!” He said.

With that in mind Hunter found them easily enough. At least part of them, Skara was actually just leaving. 

She smiled waving to hunter as he arrived. 

“Hey, Skara.” Hunter decided to initiate. “I finished some base suggestions for team formation next- uh game.”

“That’s great!” She replied. “I'm actually almost finished looking over the previous writings too, I was on my over there to finish them up now! But right now your looking for the Raine and their rebel band right?” 

“Hey, I disbanded the emperor’s coven and all the others a month ago, nothing for them to be rebelling against now.”

Skara laughed, patting Hunter on the shoulder as she passed him. 

‘Trust me, there’s always a good cause somewhere that’s needs fighting for. Anyways, they should in the courtyard out in back.”

“Thanks.”

Hunter yelled, as he hurried out back. 

Out in back he was greeted with the sight of the bi-weekly catts reunion. Every other week Raine and their “catts” would host a reunion. Their rebellion was no longer necessary or a need for secrecy but everyone enjoyed getting together and talking about their experiences and just have an excuse to hang out and have fun. Kayta even insisted on some low level continued prep in case Belos or someone similar decided to come back. Hunter held... conflicted feelings whether to encourage more or not. 

But setting all that aside. Hunter was coming in particular today because he hoped to find Raine having dragged Darius there and the chance to be able to talk to him.

Darius had sent him a last minute text a few days ago sowing lessons were cancelled for the next two weeks. Hunter knew Darius had a life outside of tolerating him and was probably. It wasn’t personal. But two weeks was way too long to be continually wondering whether he had messed everything up and Darius was getting tired of him. He planned to “causally” bump into Darius ask an innocent sewing question he had been wondering, and “while he was here” lead in to “wondering why he was so busy”. The answer would either way soothe his racing thoughts and he could go back to coping normally (more normally anyways) Sadly the moment he set eyes on the group it was another dead end. 

Dejected he started to stalk away. 

“What’s got you down and leaving so soon, Blondie?”

Hunter turned back around. He stood there awkwardly, rubbing his arm. He actually even sincerely considered him and the owl lady on pretty good terms,he couldn’t help but feel guilt for Luz being out there somewhere with Belos lurking somewhere as well.

 “I was looking for Darius.” He replied, still unsure if he should even bothering saying anything. 

That set off a glint in her eyes. She knew something about that after all it seemed. “Let me guess, he’s been a bit busy, and accidentally phantom-ed you?” 

“I-well- yes?”

She set her drink down, patting his shoulder in a fond way. 

“Well, Darius can be a bit of a sourpussy but- he really didn’t mean to cut off contact. He actually has quite the ambitious project he just dove into. Super tunnel-vision workaholic. Raine could probably tell you more about it. Let me get them over here in fact!”

Before Hunter could protest or anything of the sort, Eda called out with glee. 

“Yoo-hoo! Oh my dearest Rainestorm!Your most lovelysome presence at your soonest convenience would be highly appreciated!” She sang-sung. 

Raine rambled forward, a little red in the face. 

“Eda, was that really necessary? Oh- Hello Hunter, How are you?”

“Uh, fine, I guess. Eda said you might know something about Darius?”

“Oh. Oh! OOOOOOh!!” Raine said after a minute of afterthought. Hunter of course was more lost with that response.

Raine coughed. “I mean. Rest assured. Darius has not forgotten about you. In fact.” They leaned in closer. “His project actually has to do with you.” 

Hunter blinked. Surprised at that. 

“But that’s just between you and me.” Raine said giving a wink. 

“oh. “ A small feeling of warmness enveloped him. “I’m relieved.”

He clutched his palisman staff with renewed determination ready to take on the world, now that he was for sure nobody he cared about hated him at the moment. 

“Oh, wait Hunter.” Hunter stopped at Raine’s remark. Wondering what else they could possibly have to tell him.

They sighed, taking off their glasses, rubbing them anxiously, their expression seeming almost ashamed. 

“Hunter, it’s been a crazy past few weeks, maybe a month now. Since you became emperor, since covens were laxed. But I want to say something I should have said weeks ago, no months, no I should have told you this the moment I became covenhead and aware of your situation. But turning a blind eye in favor of different priorities. I formally apologize for letting Belos and everyone- and I mean everyone in the emperor’s coven treat you the way they did.” 

Hunter waved it off, honestly in comparison to everyone Raine probably treated him the best. Never mocked or laughed. Sometimes even a kind smile or vague sense of comfort.

“Oh, please compared to everyone else your behavior was well overly compassionate!”

Raine looked at him with pity. 

“That’s worse you do see how it’s worse?”

“Whaaaat?” He tried to keep his voice from cracking. “It’s totally fine-- you-- you all had your reasons.”

“Just because we did, doesn’t take the hurt away.”

“You would have never been able to save me from Belos back then. They were too many obstacles.” 

Hunter breath was coming slightly faster, a pressure was building in his head.

“We could have alleviated something, eased off the coldness spared a kind word or two.”

“You did, once or twice at least. I'm sure” 

It was getting more and more unbearable. Building up more than he could stand.

“But we all could have done, at least something more--”

“Yeah, YOU COULD HAVE!” 

The volume came out louder than he could have ever expected, and he clapped a hand over his mouth. But the words wouldn’t stop.

“I would done literally anything for just a nice word, a spot of praise, respect. Why didn’t anyone do anything! It was fine to bear with it, when I thought it was normal. When I thought that’s just the painstaking process of pleasing someone went. But now that I know I could have had a healthy relationship this whole time or even just a tolerate one just like everyone else had with each other, but no said ANYTHING. They just let me SUFFER!” 

“Hunter-” Eda was trying to say anything, her responsibility was less than Raine. 

Hunter felt a wet substance leaking of his eyes. Was he crying? That was pretty pathetic, He thought he was long over this. He wasn’t even angry at something that had been out of both of their control . He was just resigned to mourn his life and so many more of wasted devotion. 

He turned away. Head bowed. Numbly pulling on his much shorter piece of hair in the middle.

“Why didn’t anyone do anything? Say Anything? They could have done something, anything?” It was supposed to be more a rhetorical question, there wasn't really a right answer that could be given, however even in the low, small, resigned tone it still came out desperate and pleading.

“They were reasons…” Eda started, feeling the need to say something.

Hunter squatted down, tucking his head between his knees playing with a piece of grass, the staff leaning between his arms. Throwing such a childish tantrum in a public place like this when everyone was supposed to be celebrating being over Belos. How embarrassing. 

“I know. I know logically. They were reasons, some like me were tricked or given the baseline that it was normal, some had missions far too important to jeopardize and wouldn’t be able to do anything until afterward. Some… never had any interest in caring in the first place.” Hunter droned off. 

The blade snapped off flying away in the wind. 

“It’s just hard to internalize all that, It’s feels like if it wasn’t their fault, that’s means all the blame lies on my shoulders.”

“Hey no.” Raine finally butted in. “If you take something important from anything I’ve ever told you. It’s that none of this is your fault.” 

They test Hunter’s willingness for contact with a tap on his shoulder, and then goes in for a warm embrace. After only a moment of hesitation he melts into it. 

“You were just a kid, you did whatever you had to, to make it out. And you’ve come so far from that. The changes you made and helped with, with the government with magic, with all your friends, to the whole of the boiling isles will ensure nothing like what you experienced will ever happen again.”

That was the comforting thing he heard. Maybe he even try to believe it someday. Trying to regain his composure he pulled away drying his eyes. 

“I- thank you. Really thank you. Um- I was thinking about visiting the ex-emperors coven support group next week you mentioned,"

After everything it might actually be a good idea.

"do you have an extra flyer?” 

Eda winked eda-ishly, “I can actually do one better. I’ll send you a link through penstagram.” 

His tinged when she finished typing. 

“Wait, why do have the details to ex-emperors coven support group?” 

“Gasp! You don’t remember how you personally recruited me?”

“That was literally the most unofficial flat-out made up position that you joined like a day before it disbanded, how does that count?’

“I can’t believe you're saying the high-authority position I’ve been abusing has been a lie this whole time!” 

Hunter rolled his eyes. Waving goodbye to everyone. 

“See you around, owl lady!” His staff switched to flying mode, and he took off. He wasn’t exactly 

sure where he was going as the scenery changed around him, and the owl house faded out of view. But he knew it was going to be a good day.

 And that’s when Luz attacked him. 

“TAKE THAT SUCKA!!!!” A bolt of energy came at him, the source being a very bedraggled human he had not seen in a while. He instinctively dodged it, not without many questions springing up. He had to push down the instinct to fight back, he had no idea what was up with Luz, but he couldn’t afford to hurt her. 

“Luz what is wron-uuuh!!”

Flapjack took the wheel for a second to steer him away from more heavy fire. He narrowed his eyes. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Luz’ other two companions house-demon-tube, and rat-dog-thing rearing up for attack. He needed to end this, and get some answers.

He soared up in the sky, going too high for accurate shots. He felt a second of weightlessness as he stopped. Then he started falling he gripped flapjack tight, pulling into a dive. He concentrated very hard now gaining momentum dodging more attacks.

He waited till he was nearly about to hit the ground and the attacks were getting too relentless to avoid, just before impact he pulled out. Summoning the growing magic attack within the staff, he slammed an end into the ground. 

“THAT’S ENOUGH!!!” A wave of yellow energy erupted from that spot emanating outwards. It knocked down Luz who was preparing another glyph, it knocked King mid-screech who was coming in with backup and Hooty from where he was no doubt also trying to incapacitate him as well.

 Luz was already set to recover. But Hunter intended to end this, he teleported in front of her taking her off guard. He grabbed the glyphs out of her hand tearing them in half to render them useless. She tried to attack him hand-hand, but that was easy enough to stop, as he held a arm's length to avoid getting bit. 

Flapjack detransformed, perching on his shoulder. Hunter exasperatedly pinched the bridge of his nose. 

“Now what-” He said wildly gesturing to Luz and king and Hooty strewn about. “ IN THE NAME OF THE HOLY TITAN IS GOING ON HERE!!?!?!?!?!” (He missed King’s flinch at the mention)

From her bedraggled position on the floor, and Hunter-level bags under her eyes. She collected herself as much as possible. 

“Well you see, Hunter- If that is your name… ?” 

“Is there a reason it shouldn’t be?” He asked deadpan. 

“Well, several discrepancies alternate multiverses and timelines, symbolic other stuff, different codename or fake name..” She muttered trailing off. 

“Anyways the back on topic, the important thing is, me and my dear companions may bear heavy recognition to your Luz,Hooty and King, but we are actually travelers from an alternate universe- Hey!” 

She was cut off when Hunter scooped her up slinging her over his back and starting to walk away. 

“Okay, one of you- Owl Tube, what kind of poisonous mushroom did she eat? Is is something that’s generally poisonous or might this be a human sensitivity thing? How long ago did she start hallucinating?” 

“Oh, it must have been about two days ago!” Hooty replied cheerfully. 

“Wait!” King said stepping in front of Hunter. He waved his tiny claws trying to halt his walk.

 “I think this might be a huge misunderstanding. We just came back from our…” He looked away, obviously some sort of personal thing “Trip and when we came back we saw that Eda was part of Government and Luz thought we might be in an alternate universe.” 

From on his back, Luz struggled hissing and kicking before knocking them both down. 

They both got up to face each other, king on one side, Hooty on Luz’s. 

“Okay, I guess I should have probably asked this before, attempting to kidnap you and interrogate you for answers. But, what happened Hunter? I mean last I heard from you we just escaped the Emperor’s mind and you ran out, and now you’re the Emperor! And Eda is in the government?!!” Luz said desperate and lost. 

Hunter frowned, he knew all too well what that felt like. He sighed, pulling up a split rock to sit on he gestured for the others too as well. 

“It’s a long story. You should probably know first, Belos is… dead. I permanently canceled the day of unity and everything.“ Flapjack looked at him disapprovingly, pecking at his head, but swatted him away. Everyone else gasped in surprise, Luz stopped moving and Hooty’s jaw dislocated dropping 

“He’s long gone, and for whatever reason everyone else decided I should be in charge. As for the whole thing with Eda."

He paused a moment to top himself from laughing at remembering the ridiculousness of the whole ordeal.

"Honestly I had no idea they’d actually seriously recruit her for my ambassador. It was just something ridiculous I said to throw them off guard!”
Luz laughed at that rubbing her eyes, now that they were finally safe she was a lot calmer. 

“Don’t worry too much she’s still the same Eda you know and love-- stealing whatever she can fit in her hair to resell on the dark market, (that she’s actually in charge of regulating). There’s been so much happening ,really you have no idea…”

But they soon did as Hunter told them everything, all the ups and downs sillies and serious that had happened when they were gone. 

“Ugh!” Luz cried clutching her head in frustration. “You and Willow, Of course! I can’t believe my shipper instincts failed me!”

“Uh, well in your defense you only saw them interact like once, at that was a team picture on Penstagram!” King said meekly.

“That’s no excuse! I should have noticed, the unspoken tension in the room, special names for the other, blushing whenever the other was near, the pining!!!” 

(Somehow she had guessed all that correctly despite never having been there when it happened. Scary. Not that it proved Willow liked him back, just that hunter had a crush on Willow) 

“Okay, first of all, there’s no concrete evidence that Willow,” Hunter looked away awkwardly. 

“like-likes me. And second-” 

‘Shhh, shu-shushity shush! From this moment on I shall be your most trusted wingperson!” Luz proclaimed clinging to Hunter, in the background Hooty hooted his agreement. 

Hunter shoved her hand off his shoulder. 

“You might have to get in line for that.” He muttered thinking back the increasingly odd numbers of situations his fellow emerald entrails had set him up with where was typically with Willow alone. The continued coincidence had been odd at the time but this seemed a likely explanation now that he thought about it. 

“Did you just say something?” King asked, paying attention when Luz had been lost in her shipper fantasies. The attention was immediately turned back on him. 

“Uhhhh, I mean I’ve said a little of what I’ve been up to, but what about your little trio?”

“Oh that, well, it’s been a wild ride,’ She rubbed her neck anxiously. Her tone dropping the cheerfulness fast. ‘Lot’s of plot twists..” 

And she told him, the most emotionless rendition she could manage, Hooty chipping in. King just sitting there the whole time head tucked in as she recounted an invitation to finally meet King’s real family, a history tour of what he thought was his proud heritage the tone ominous, they only got that far when Hunter interrupted many parts of the group they were describing sounding familiar- 

“Wait, I thought it was the collector’s older siblings who used the cult to wipe out the titans-”

This time it was King who stared at him speechless. 

“The collectors- siblings? How in the world do you know about that? What even-” 

Hunter bit his lip, not that he perceived the collector as evil or malintented anymore, but something still made him keep the whole mess a secret. 

He bit his lip, Flapjack distracting chirping at him definitely didn’t help either. He sighed. 

“I possibly forgot to mention this, or probably skimmed over this, but, uh- well it’s probably easiest I just show you all, and another thing I’ve inherited while I’m at it.”

“Echo. Echo.Echo.” Called Hooty's screechy voice from behind luz on the backpack thing was carrying. They were walking in the cavern travel by Hooty had been surprisingly efficient for the trio but this last stretch had to be walked.

“Okay Hunter, the suspense is killing us, what is down here?” 

“We should close enough, it’s something-”

Luz screeched in surprise as surprise no. 2 reached her first. 

“Th-the collector!?!?!”

A child’s voice giggled, the collector’s shadow form roaming the walls and ceilings in front of them.  

King flinched, trying to resume his normal positioning. Hooty resumed a defense stance. 

“Oh, yeah,” Hunter said sheepishly. “I’ve been kind of talking with the collector about… stuff. Trying to figure out any last hidden aces phil- Belos had up his sleeve. “

He backtracked fast in case he sounded too paranoid. 

“Uh-uhh just in case he already set a plan in motion. Not because I think he’s back, or-or anything.At all. Whatsoever. The collector’s also not… malicious it turns out. I was pretty wary at first as well. But he’s well..”

“Just a kid.” King surprisingly was the one to say. “He’s not some all-powerful God of Wrath or anything, he’s just a kid who didn’t know any better. Because no one told him anything.” 

There seemed like there was a lot more packed into that statement that Hunter wasn’t getting, but it was nothing to bother about now. 

Luz approached them cautiously reaching out a hand. “The first time we saw him, they seemed really childish, but he really is just some lonely kid who had no company for thousands of years except for a horrible bitter old man.”

“Ohh, Hunter, Hunter!” The collector paused his exclamation. “Did you see that. I remembered to use your name! That was good right?” 

“Uh. thanks. “

“Did I do really good?? Is that why you brought friends, “ He circled around them stepping into their shadows, and acting them out. “The human, the owl house demon, currently house-less. And-” They paused coming across King coming in close but never reaching him. 

“Wasn’t there a third one? I thought I heard-” 

Now wasn’t this queer. What was it about King that was different with the collector. He moved on pretty quickly though. 

‘Oooh, can we play another game now? Pretty please! Now that there’s more of us, we can play that game I always wanted to!” 

“I thought I explained to you. Life-size pinball might be fun for you, but would be too traumatic for the rest of us, witch seized  beings.”

“Life-sized, pinball?” Luz asked while Hooty and the collector got into some sort of weird out-acting contest. 

Hunter grimaced. “I’ve been trying to get them to abandon the idea for weeks. Not that it'll happen anyway since he's all but incorporeal in this form.  But collector, can you check where Eda and everyone is right now? I want Luz to be reunited with everyone as soon as possible.”

“Of course! Course I can, Corsican!” His formed gathered itself into a large concentrated smaller before impossibly expanding and thinning. “Anything for my bestie, and future besties!” Was the last thing they heard before he was gone. 

“Oh, also, speaking of reunions, this was the other surprise.” Hunter said flipping on the light switch. 

Luz gasped as the fully built an rendered portaled lit up center stage. She walked toward it, almost in a trance. 

“I wasn’t sure how long it was gonna be before I was able to make one. If I’d ever be able to see the human world, Mama, again.” Her voice was hushed and delicate, and Hunter hated to break the bad news.

“Well actually, it’s not fully operational. We’ve got the door, the key…” He knocked on the door, proving it stable, grabbed the key from a nearby table. “But in that whole eclipse lake fight, “ He looked away from King, “I’m sure you know it got cracked, and I forgot about the key for a while, so almost all of the Titan blood is gone. I don’t know what to do about it, unless you’ve got a titan stashed somewhere.” He joked. 

King hesitantly piped up. “Well actually,” 

Luz looked at King, Hooty too concerned, cautious. Hunter didn’t know what was going on, but he had a foreboding feeling. 

“Are you sure?” Luz asked. King looked downcast for a moment but pressed on. 

“We never finished the story, After  the titan-trappers betrayed us, turned on us and tried to kill us. Kill me, because… I’m a titan. The son of the Titan that is the boiling isles.” 

The key slipped out of his gloves, clattering to floor, the glass cracking even more. Not that it mattered now obviously. 

“Oh.” Hunter squeaked out. At least that’s what he thought he said. His galderstone heart began to beat impossibly fast. Thumping loud in his ears. Somewhere along the line his breathing sped up. Almost by instinct his hand reached up to tug his short piece of hair in the middle. 

“That’s fine, that’s totally normal. I mean this is fine. Everything’s fine. I already Phillip, Belos- erch whatever- was lying- about  everything. Of course he was lying about this. Even talking with the collector the titan was never a holy being, just a person. Might as well be a person I know, who I threatened once or twice.Why not? Why not??!?!?!” 

“Umm.” King reached out nervously. This was technically his fault, he felt. Should he say something, he didn’t want to make things more weird than before. 

“Are you okay?” Luz asked, Flapjack joined her in expressing their concern. 

Hunter tried to gain his composure by leaning casually on the table, but his hand was trembling too much and he slipped hitting his head. He picked up the closest instrument on the table and chucked at the wall behind it, breathing heavily as it shattered to pieces. 

‘I- I’m- I be fine. Just- go! Go to human realm. Might as well take a little trip now you have all the stuff you need for it to be operational.” His breathing became slower, and Flapjack flew over there ready to be an emotional support palisman. “I’m just going to finish having my mental breakdown over there or something. Don’t mind me!”

Luz POV 

“Byeee!” He said. 

Luz watched in slight worry. Flapjack flapped after him, seemingly assuring them it was under control. She faced the portal with growing contrite feelings. She remembered being so desperate to find a way back. Who knows the future, it had been completely unpredictable up till now. Maybe somehow she might not get another chance. 

King had already given some blood, so the magic juices and everything were working. 

She approached the door. Memories flashing of last attempt to cross the dimensional planes to her home realm, to her Mom.

“If I keep working my hardest I will make a working portal!”

Her fingers delicately grasped the doorknob, 

“You.. chose to stay there?” They flew off immediately at memory of that. 

She remembered how the rest of it went as well. 

“When you come back. Promise me you’ll stay, Promise!”

She returned her hand. 

“Okay Mom. I promised.” 

And entered in. The door shutting behind her. As Luz Noceda returned to the human realm. 

It was just like she remembered, but with everything a little different all the same. Maybe it was her that was the thing that had changed.

Approaching her house was easy enough, but getting any closer was harder. 

She was close enough to see her mom in the window. Washing dishes next to a past picture of their family. All it would take was the quietest knock on wood, why wouldn’t her fingers cooperate. 

After Hunter had done all this work finding a working portal for her. 

Hunter, she remembered the first time she truly met him-- saw him. It was when she tried to adopt a palisman. Not she had one now either. But things hadn't worked out back the either- well at first. 

Months later and she was in still the same pickle, but the stakes were higher in other ways, despite the day of unity being cancelled, and a way back secured. She loved the boilings isles for being the first place she truly felt she could belong, but how could she forget the person who been there first to try and help her belong before everyone else. 

She couldn’t picture a future without Eda, King and her Hexside friends anymore, and of course the thought of her Mom not there as well was unimaginable. But meshing those two ideas together seemed impossible. 

“What do I want to be when I grow up?” She muttered miserably, the answer was always a witch, like Azura! An author who could write about that stuff. A warrior of peace and justice. 

But none of those were real answers that could help her decide. She wanted… she needed…

More time! That’s what. 

Luz swiveled back around at the declaration, making a clatter as she clamored down the patio stairs. 

“I’ll come back when I’m super prepared and ready, with a plan of what to do with my life! Why the boiling isles is amazing safe, and necessary to be involved with it! And Mom will be so impressed and… understand. Hopefully.”

She gulped. But if this plan was to be full proof she needed to get started right away! She picked up the pace heading back to the portal door. Such a hurry she was in, she didn’t notice her clamor and racket had been heard.  

A certain mother stopped her dish washing immediately. She only caught a glimpse of her daughter Luz who had been trapped in the demon realm but that was more than enough time to make a decision.

“Luz?” 

Back in the demon realm Luz halfheartedly closed the portal door, behind her. Her head lifted higher, when Hunter returned bearing news of Eda and all her friends locations. They were all quickly off. So speedy their flight they didn’t notice the portal door crack open again behind them. And the fourth human we have record of entered the demon realm.

“Luz?. Sweetie are you there?”

Camilla fully let the door swing open as she took in sights she could have 

"¿Qué es este lugar?"

Back to Hunter POV 

Luz’s reunion with her witch found family was a tearful but happy one. The moment they all came within sight Eda had started running transforming into harpy form for extra speed, but King and Luz (with Hooty still attached) had dropped out of the sky to tackle her first. 

There was a bit more confirming that Eda wasn’t from an alternate dimension where she had always been in the government. But the squeezing embrace (that hunter got confirmation wasn’t a lethal attempt) lasted quite a few minutes. And even then King refused to let go of Eda’s leg. 

The hexside group also had much to say to Luz. And everyone had everything to say about King being a titan. Lillith tried to worship him before everyone calmed her down. 

Amity even came up personally to Hunter afterwards to thank him. 

“I can never thank you enough for bringing her back to me, when I couldn’t do anything.”  She gave him a quick hug, and Hunter couldn't help but still be amazed at how far things had come. 

“Oh, and Hunter, I forgot to say this before, but I’m glad you found them.”

“Hm?”

“People out there, that don't make you feel worthless.”

Hunter looked around all the people who he had grown to trust more than anything in the world. 

“Me too.” He smiled.

Willow came up as well, though that was because she was leaving early. 

“Working on a special project!” She said, giving Hunter a wink that he denied blushing too.

Now Hunter just sat leaned against the wall, watching such buffoonery that he had never felt so sentimental about before.

“All's well that ends well?”

Hunter jumped, so checked out he hadn’t noticed, Flapjack twittered a little chirp of laughter. 

He sighed. “Seems like it. Day of Unity is cancelled. You’re back and kickin’. Belos… is gone, and you’ve figured out things in the human realm too, right?” 

At that, Luz posture grew less relaxed. “Oh, yeah, that, Don’t worry I’ve got everything figured out with my mom and the demon realms, and the magic-life balance. And where I'm going to stay... and what I'm going to be when I grow up...” She mumbled trailing off.  

She started rocking back and forth on her heels for some reason, her expression seeming just slightly not convincing as Hunter thought it would be. 

“I mean there's probably a few more stuff that couldn’t hurt to work on. But no pressing issue that putting it off will put us in danger. I mean Belos’ dead as a doorknob, righ?.”

Hunter laughed nervously at that. 

“Oh, yeah, totally, he’s so completely. Hahaha. Defintely. Dead. And gone, and not here. At all.” 

“Yeperree, Glad we’re able to be so transparent with the situation.”

“Uh - hmm.” Luz with the same tension in her tone of voice. “Glad there are no more dangerous secrets anyone’s keeping that could affect the future.”

“Or safety.”

"Yep."

"Definitely."

"Completely." 

"Utterly." 

They both continued, lying through their teeth to the other, but too nervous about their own lies to see the other's. 

But meanwhile the consequences of their actions knowingly or not was both coming for them. 

Point of View, Guess who?

“So I just need to of utmost surety you’re all in .” 

The cloaked figures nodded, before unhooding. 

Standing in a dark murky room, all facing the former emperor, were quite a few familiar sinister faces. 

Odalia Blight, looking a bit worse for war after the messy divorce and post-ceeding arrest. All the other coven members and a few replacements, 

The murky vaguely humanoid form they were all turned to wiggled better adjective, the familiar yet tattered and torn emperor's cloak and clothes hid his true inhumanity from the group. And provided the illusion of the man who once was. He opened a book. Flipping through a few pages, he did struggle a tad as the tips of his fingers turned to a horrible goop, but at last he landed on the one he was looking for. 

"I didn't want to resort to this, even to the most wretched of witches. You all disgusting witches forced my hand." He muttered before speaking up in a more clear convincing tone. 

"Though this procedure will not be a pleasant sight. I promise it is necessary. When it is accomplished you shall all be greatly rewarded. Know we are doing a important work, that is necessary!" 

He spread his hands wide a show of good faith. The attendants nodded, resuming their ongoing workload, and final preparations. 

Belos creeped out to the shadows in the corner of the room. "Yes, yes, you shall all get your due reward. Exactly what you deserve." 

His body lurched and he struggled to back in a hidden corner of the house before letting him form collapse. His grotesque from groped around for the spare palisman his fingers could barely form before it slipped through them but in the end he sucked up the cursed magic juice that fueled and furthered his repulsive curse. 

"This is all your fault. Caleb. And Eve. And Abel. And Jasper. And all the rest!!" His form become slightly more stable and he threw the empty husk of palisman at the wall. 

"Even the stupid insolent human girl. And Hunter.." His form couldn't handle all the anger and a mesh of slime and goop came out pounding the wall relentless before he satisfied, and the boards were splintered and creaking. 

"After all I did for you. The last one, after all the measures extra care I took, that you would be tempted by that black sorcerery. Right before all my plans came to fruition." His eyes glowed red, but he was done with tantrums, it was almost time to do some real damage and leave this place once and for all to rot and ruin.  He picked the broken palisman. And squeezed it till it was nothing but a bunch of broken wood and splinters that used to be a witch's best friend. 

"This especially is for you. Hunter."